Book Review: Time to Sell? Guide To Selling A Physician Practice: Value, Options, Alternatives, 2nd edition by Randy Bauman, Greenbranch Publishing, 2011, 124 pages, $86.50

Trends, like horses, are easier to ride in the direction they are going.

John Naisbitt, author of Megatrends (1982) and Mindset! (2006)

December 6, 2011- Every once a while, a book on the nuts, bolts, and realities of current physician trends catches my eye and hits my gut.

A Time To Sell? is such a book. The author, Randy Bauman, is president of Delta Health Care. For 25 years, Bauman has advised physicians and hospitals on how to ride current trends.

What impresses me about the book is Bauman’s gift of getting to the meat of the matter – the Whys, Whats, and Whatnots in the headlong horse race of physicians to sell to hospitals. There is no horsing around here. He accurately describes the trends and mindsets of physicians and hospitals as they race to reach deals to survive pressures of health reform.

Here, for your consideration, are quotes from the book:

• ”The trend is unmistakable – physicians continue to sell their practices at a feverish pace. In my role as a practice consultant, I can tell you this trend is taking on tsunami proportions. “

• “I see more and more physicians disillusioned with private practice they are reconciled to selling or merging their practice, and making the best deal they can.”

• “One physician hit the nail on the head when he told me,’I always have to remind myself that’s it never as good as it seems on the best days and never as bad as it seems on the worse days. That’s how I keep my perspective.”

• “In many ways, what happens as physicians sell their practices to hospitals is analogous to a shotgun wedding in which both parties rush down the aisle without sufficient time to plan their life together. And that is where the trouble begins. The reality sets in soon afterward that what has been created is an unmanageable monster.”

The book is more than sound bites. It consists of 10 chapters on what to expect, what to do, what not to do, and what items to check off before you do a deal.

The 10 chapters, with takeaway points at the end of each chapter are:

1. Why Sell?

2. Preparing Your Chapter for Sale

3. Choosing the Right Hospital Partner

4. Valuation – What is Your Practice Worth?

5. Compensation

6. Deal Structure

7. Negotiations

8. Operational and Post-Sale Issues

9. Making It Work

10. Options Other Than Selling

Tweet: Before physicians sell their practices to hospitals, they should stop to consider: this may not be a deal made in heaven.