-
Hiring former PE rads
Would be interested in hearing about other’s experiences and/or thoughts on the topic, given the difficulty in hiring rads.
Personally, I have an extremely negative knee-jerk reaction to the idea of hiring a rad (particularly for partnership tract), that sold his/her practice to PE for personal financial gain, and now wants to jump ship given that work conditions are bad and the practice is sinking. Wondering if I am being too judgmental/harsh. -
29 Replies
-
If they admit it was a mistake and show remorse for killing their group, then I’d consider an application from a PE buyout partner. If they were part of the group leadership then absolutely not. You need to be careful though since many of these people already have “fuck you” money and they are at high risk of being lazy/unproductive because they know you need warm bodies and can’t be easily fired once they start.
Definitely don’t discriminate against non-buyout junior partners or associates who didn’t know better coming fresh out of fellowship. After their exposure to the beast up front these can be some of the most anti-PE people out there. -
they owe you no explanation
it clearly did not work out for them.-
Radiology is a small world. If you sold out your private group, you are blacklisted from the best private groups essentially. I would only hire a sellout as an employee. Perhaps I would consider putting them on a 5 year partnership track.
-
Reminds me of the saying:
“Letting the fox guard the hen house.”
-
-
Quote from Jackie Treehorn
they owe you no explanation
it clearly did not work out for them.
True, no one needs to explain or justify anything. Just wanted to get a sense if my queasy feelings on the matter were subjective and unique.-
Id hire them if they were solid clinical rads, even as partners, but have a clause stipulating that they have no voting rights as regards practice sale.
-
Just have to figure out what the circumstances were.
Were they on the partnership track at the time of the sale and didnt have a say in the matter? This happened to me in my first job after moving my family across the country.
Did the applicant oppose a sale as partner but had limited mobility secondary to family issues? e.g. geographically restricted after divorce and needed to stay in town until their kids graduated high school?
If they drank the kook-aid and sold out like a worthless turd, then I agree – throw their CV in the toilet and flush.
-
Agree, but getting the truth would seem difficult. No one is going to come out and say, “Yah, I voted to screw all my younger associates”
-
Depends on desperate you are.
Our group had a rad who had just made partner and then left to a group in the same metro area because they paid more. He was a good rad and well-liked.
It didnt work out at the new group and he wanted to come back after two years.
He didnt do anything wrong, but we also cant have people feeling that they can go try out other groups in the area that pay more and then if it doesnt work out, be reassured that we will welcome them back with open arms like a safety net.
so most of our rads would not take him back. That was at least three years ago. Now, we want to hire a specialist with his specialty background, and we have interviewed a few who we did not like for one reason or another. He happened to reach out to us and because we are a little bit desperate, we now will take him back. So I think for these things are fluid, its just how desperate you are.
-
Quote from TurboEcho
Agree, but getting the truth would seem difficult. No one is going to come out and say, “Yah, I voted to screw all my younger associates”
The only truth I would want to know is whether or not they voted to sell.-
Blacklisted??? Lollllthats not how markets work
-
Looks like we found a sellout.
-
I’m not speculating on the likelihood of success or the ethics of it but …
Blacklisting is a time honored form of collusive practice within markets. Using the threat of exclusion from participation in markets by the controlling interests working together as a behavioral enforcement method in order to achieve desired outcomes has been part of markets for centuries.
-
-
-
Quote from jd4540
Quote from TurboEcho
Agree, but getting the truth would seem difficult. No one is going to come out and say, “Yah, I voted to screw all my younger associates”
The only truth I would want to know is whether or not they voted to sell.
The picture in the past was not as clear as it is now. Hindsight is always 20/20
Many voted against it but prior to the wide acceptance of remote work and the job market recovering may have been stuck.
Others may have been lured in by the siren song prior to seeing a track record/understanding of what they were signing up for.
The third category is full of greed and possibly shortsighteness.
I think you want to avoid category 3 (greed) and questionably category 2 (stupidity) but not category 1(victim)-
Quote from JTG
Quote from jd4540
Quote from TurboEcho
Agree, but getting the truth would seem difficult. No one is going to come out and say, “Yah, I voted to screw all my younger associates”
The only truth I would want to know is whether or not they voted to sell.
The picture in the past was not as clear as it is now. Hindsight is always 20/20
Many voted against it but prior to the wide acceptance of remote work and the job market recovering may have been stuck.
Others may have been lured in by the siren song prior to seeing a track record/understanding of what they were signing up for.
The third category is full of greed and possibly shortsighteness.
I think you want to avoid category 3 (greed) and questionably category 2 (stupidity) but not category 1(victim)
Well put!-
I think the more recent sellouts are worse. They literally only had to step foot on these forums or just follow the news cycle to see the evils of private equity. So not only are recent sellouts greedy but also ignorant and arguably stupid.
Reaching break even status after 5 years or so then having decreased salary the rest of your career is stupid, full stop.
But hey its your business to sell as some think. Funny how those that retired before the business was sold didnt get anything.
If I own a car wash with 10 other people and we all take shifts working the car wash- and then I retire from working that car wash I still own a portion of that car wash. Sure, I am maybe not entitled to whatever the value of shifts I didnt work but you cant just sell my car wash and not give me my portion of the proceeds. That is what these groups did- they sold and didnt give any money to the partners before them. Sure you can argue there is a buyin/buyout but that is just because of the billables. You could maybe make the argument if you own imaging equipment which would have a more substantial buyin or buyout. But if you really own a piece of the business why would you ever sell your interest in the imaging equipment. Its a great investment.
-
I think it is questionable ethics to say you own a business that requires you to continue to work for it to function and results in permanent decreased money to the newcomers to the business. You leave after vesting in 5 years, not enough newcomers to keep the skimjob business afloat, and it fails.
Sure its legal. But I would say those that sellout are immoral in a sense. Its not like you wrote software code or built a factory that produces widgets. You literally just got an advance on your future salary which then becomes permanently decreased salary for all newcomers and those that decide to stay on after 5 years. It sounds more like a payday loan.
-
They made a deal with the devil and got their bag of PE cash at the expense of all their employees who were on partnership track. Not exactly the type of person Id want as a potential partner.
Anecdotally the few former classmates of mine that were partners in groups that did this (the big one in Houston comes to mind) were total narcissistic a-holes.
Id steer a wide berth.
-
.
-
Nah we can smell a rat Nate. Plus we would talk to all of your former colleagues that we know. And if we dont know any of your former colleagues, then we would know someone that does. We would send you packing bud
-
Our place is fully staffed. But even if it wasnt, Id take 3 weeks less vacation before I hired private equity sellout scum
-
There are potential legal issues around hiring PE rads due to the non-competes. If they are still under a non-compete then RP/Envision/etc could give you some trouble if they decide to aggressively enforce.
-
Yep. As if you needed another reason not to hire these private equity dirtbags. I think they should stay locked into the private equity system. With any luck we can let them wallow in their bad decision for the rest of their careers.
-
This question needs perspective. There were plenty of radiologists out there who had no part of any sell out but ended up staying onboard after the takeover. But really, the bottom line is there is a major shortage of radiologists and every radiologist has value. There are quite a few radiologists who are at the end of their vesting period with a PE practice that can now leave. Many are looking to get back into a private practice. I guess it all comes down to their attitude. I have spoken with some who expect near partner pay and super fast partnership and are arrogant and not worth my time. The majority just want to find good position and get back into a private practice. Most of these tend to be those who were against the sale but were outvoted. They stayed because they had to. No one is going to sacrifice themselves on the alter of righteousness if it costs them big bucks. My philosophy is take all potential candidates seriously until they give you reason not to.
-
I wonder if some who sold out want to get back into PP and sell out again…
-
Quote from boggles
I wonder if some who sold out want to get back into PP and sell out again…
There will be no more sellouts. Envision is toast. RP will not be purchasing any more practices. They will be trying very hard to keep the ones they have together. PE radiology has peaked and will now just try to survive. -
Quote from Daniel Corbett
Quote from boggles
I wonder if some who sold out want to get back into PP and sell out again…
There will be no more sellouts. Envision is toast. RP will not be purchasing any more practices. They will be trying very hard to keep the ones they have together. PE radiology has peaked and will now just try to survive.
I tend to agree. The rural RP PE practices seem likely to fold. Big cities – who knows?
Look at rural New Mexico. RP has rolled it all up. They have never been able to staff it. Not from day one. -
Many of the bigger city practices that sold were pseudo partnership or non-partnership practices anyway- not much changes for drones with RP or Envision replacing the prior contract holders.
Will RP and Envision and backers remain interested in big city practices when they wake up from their monopoly dreams and face stiff competition for employees? i.e. lower profit margins?
Trying to beat the insurance companies at the whose is bigger game doesn’t seem to be working for PE. Only hospital systems and pharma can play that game for the win.
Will PP have a resurgence in big cities. I don’t think so. -
I concede that maybe 5% of former PE sellouts could be decent human beings and partners, but I would look at all other options first. I would be skeptical that any of them would be particularly motivated to work hard in light of their bag of sellout cash which is another mark against them unfortunately.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
