The age divide: How to keep generations of physicians from bumping heads and wallets

If your practice has more than one physician, there are bound to be disagreements. Mutual respect and open discussions about financial issues can keep a generation gap from becoming a gaping chasm.

By Mike Norbut, AMNews staff. Dec. 9, 2002.

Put a younger physician and an older physician in the same room, and they're bound to have differences in opinion. That just goes with being on opposite ends of the generation gap.

But put two such physicians in the same practice and the gap can become a divide, especially when personal financial goals are at stake. Disagreement can grow into disrespect as doctors search for solutions to issues such as how soon a young partner can buy into the practice and what equipment physicians should purchase to ensure a profitable future.

"What you have to come down to is neither party can have it their way," said C. Kay Freeman, president of Health Systems Strategies, a consulting firm in Atlanta. "The most successful practices are the ones with mutual respect across the lines."

This is the key to keep from getting lost in the generation gap, consultants say: focus on the good of the practice, putting individual philosophical differences aside and discussing financial issues openly.

The generation gap is an issue nearly all physicians encounter -- starting out as a young physician, retiring as a senior physician, or both. Practices often deliberately set out to bring younger and senior physicians into the same setting.

The strategy has its advantages. It combines experience with energy and enthusiasm, and it gives patients a choice about what style of doctor they might want to see. Most important, it gives the practice a chance to continue when one physician, possibly its founder, retires. [...]