Physician Leaving a Practice

Here is some good advice from a practice manager in North Carolina on what to do when a physician leaves your medical practice based on her own experiences:

1) Notify your contracted insurance plans in writing. Most require 30 days notice.

2) Things like insurance benefits, retirement plans, prorated vacation/sick leave, etc. will be the same as any employee unless their employment agreements have specific provisions.

3) Make plans to use up letterhead and other forms with their names on them and get new ones printed.

4) Of course, changing call schedules and any committee duties will have to be handled.

5) The hospital may have some requirements for giving notice as well, especially if the physicians sit on any committees.

6) How you decide to notify patients is probably practice-specific. We let the departing physician notify special patients and we post a notice in our office. We do not do a mailing just because most of our patients are within the practice.