Passing the torch. Medical staff retirement planning maintains continuity of care.

A medical staff retirement program can ensure long-term accessibility to care for the community and financial viability for the hospital. Thus hospitals should become actively involved in the physician retirement planning process. By so doing, they can preserve a patient base that may have taken years to develop and, once lost, may be difficult to recover. To establish a successful medical staff retirement plan, hospitals should: 1. Analyze medical staff demographics. 2. Set procedures for determining the practice's value. 3. Develop an approach for financing the sale. 4. Define the hospital's role as a financial intermediary in the sale. 5. Determine whether the hospital will share costs with the seller. 6. Establish a communication plan to introduce the retirement program to the medical staff. In the sale of a physician's practice, some of the hospital's options include purchasing the practice, helping the seller find an associate to purchase the practice, initiating a group at the hospital and merging the practices into the group, or simply providing the physician with moral support.