Breaking Down the Importance of Emergency Succession Planning for Your Practice

An emergency succession plan is essential to making sure your practice thrives in the absence of its practice owner. Unplanned accidents, injuries, family emergencies, and even death can occur within the operations of a practice, leaving your business vulnerable. How you navigate this unprecedented time is crucial to keeping an operational practice. However, emergency succession planning is oftentimes overlooked.

The difficult aspect is to make sure the plan is right for you and your staff. Follow along with these concepts to help you update or establish an emergency succession plan. Prioritizing practice emergency planning will help in the long run to ensure complete functionality.

Analyzing What Tasks You Are Responsible For 

It is a great first step to ask yourself, “what tasks need me present to be completed?” This will help to lay the framework for defining the tasks of short-term leadership. You will be able to outline what tasks need to be filled in, how frequently they need to be done, and with what manner. We recommend breaking it down by day-to-day, monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks to stay better organized.

Typically, best practice is to assign someone other than yourself access to essential practice operations. This includes the ability to access bank accounts, sign checks, move funds, and legally set up an executor. Ensuring this system is in place will allow for a smoother transition in the case of an emergency. 

Identifying Ideal Outcomes for Practice Succession 

When planning ahead, you need to thoroughly assess all of the possible outcomes. This begins with identifying different types of emergencies and what they mean for your practice. A family emergency might be more short-term while a serious injury requires a longer time to heal. In some scenarios, you will need to prepare your practice in case of your permanent resignation. It is beneficial to outline what you want to occur within your practice following each scenario. This will guide you through your plan to ensure it is achievable and aligned with your goals.

Locums Tenen

Consider bringing in a locums tenen. This can occur during emergencies that call for temporary or permanent resignation of the current leadership. While a replacement is being found, a locums tenen may step in to see patients in the event there aren't other providers in the practice who can absorb the practice owner's schedule. This is a temporary solution and a long term plan needs to be put in place.

Securing an Acting Manager

If an emergency occurs that requires you to step out of your leadership position for a short time, an acting manager might be the right fit. An Acting Manager is typically an internal fill separate from the practice owner that steps in for only a short period of time to fulfill some of the more manageable duties. They help to maintain the status quo and keep the practice running smoothly until you are able to return. When considering acting succession for your more short-term emergencies, assess the qualifications of your stand-in. An acting manager is typically less qualified than an interim manager and is expected to complete day-to-day tasks as opposed to high-impact ones.

Permanent Succession

A thorough emergency succession plan also looks beyond temporary coverage to consider what would happen if leadership of your practice needed to change hands permanently. This might mean identifying an incoming partner, an associate physician, or another qualified successor who shares your commitment to patient care and understands how your practice operates. Because permanent transitions often involve partnership agreements, ownership terms, and other legal considerations that take time to finalize, it's best to begin these conversations well in advance and bring in legal counsel early.

Considering Staff Perspectives 

Anticipating the emotions of your staff during the implementation of an emergency succession plan is important to establishing an effective one. As a practice owner, being aware of your staff’s perspectives and reactions to leadership is essential. Consider the implications of each short and long-term leadership option. Maybe one is more well-received by the staff. This can help in maintaining the status quo and ensuring everybody remains appeased. Another leadership option might be more authoritarian. This can help to ensure the emergency on hand doesn’t cause chaos and that tasks get done efficiently. It is up to you, as a practice owner, to have a good understanding of your practice and how leadership decisions might affect your emergency succession plan.

Different titles require different qualifications. This means you need to highlight who has sufficient training to take on your tasks and for what length of time. Some practice owners utilize cross-training to ensure employees are able to sufficiently perform tasks outside of their designated role. Making these hard decisions and planning ahead will save your practice exponentially in the future.

Planning for the Unexpected

Every practice will face the unexpected at some point, and the ones that navigate it best are the ones that planned ahead. Among the many priorities that come with starting and managing a practice, an emergency succession plan deserves a place at the top of the list, because it protects everything else you've worked to build. With a clear plan in place, your team knows what to do, your patients continue to receive the care they count on, and your practice keeps moving forward no matter what comes its way.

Whether you're opening your doors or strengthening an established practice, Solutions Maven Consulting is here to help. Reach out to our team, and we'll work alongside you to build an emergency succession plan tailored to your practice, your people, and your goals.