Podcast Summary

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

Episode: Building a Physician Retention Roadmap with Scott Polenz of CHG Healthcare
Date: January 5, 2026
Host: Erica Spicer Mason
Guest: Scott Polenz, Principal Consultant at CHG Healthcare Advisory Services

Episode Overview

This episode centers on the pressing issue of physician retention in today’s healthcare environment. Scott Polenz, drawing from decades of leadership and consulting experience, walks listeners through a purposeful, structured roadmap for healthcare administrators focused on physician alignment, engagement, and retention. The discussion examines actionable strategies, real-world challenges, and how organizations can build the infrastructure to better support and retain physicians, ultimately strengthening care delivery and organizational performance.

Key Topics & Insights

1. The Critical Role of Physician Relations

• Physician Treatment is Mission Critical:
  Scott argues passionately that physician relations are at the core of healthcare success. Good relations with physicians not only improve care delivery but also innovation, reduce burnout, standardize care, and bolster organizational performance.
  “If you take care of your docs, you take care of all your pillars of excellence.” (Scott, 01:44)

• Physicians Are Not Commodities:
  He warns against treating physicians as interchangeable resources, emphasizing their foundational role and leadership, even if not in a formal leadership position.
  (03:01–03:09)

• Engagement Tied to Organizational Outcomes:
  Engaged physicians are significantly more productive, adding up to $500,000 more in annual revenue per physician.
  “An engaged physician is 26% more productive than a disengaged physician.” (Scott, 02:43)

2. Defining the Three Pillars: Alignment, Engagement, Retention

• Important Distinctions:
  Many mistakenly treat alignment, engagement, and retention as interchangeable. Scott clarifies:

  • Alignment is about shared values and mission between physicians and leadership.
  • Engagement refers to emotional investment and valuing physicians.
  • Retention relies on supporting long-term professional development and recognition.

• Roadmap Structure:
  The roadmap is organized as follows:

  • Alignment: Focuses on culture, executive leadership, communication, and physician voice.
    (Scott, 04:44)
  • Engagement: Covers onboarding, work-life balance, operational efficiency, and social connection.
    (05:28)
  • Retention: Emphasizes professional growth, wellbeing, compensation/incentives, and recognition.
    (05:46)

• Strategic Reflections for Leaders:
  The roadmap encourages healthcare leaders to self-assess (e.g., “On a scale of 1–10, what would your physicians rank their trust in executive leadership?”).
  (06:16)

3. Barriers and the Complexity of Retention Plans

• Prevalence of Formal Retention Plans is Low:
  Only about 25% of healthcare organizations have a formal physician retention plan. Most do a little here and there, but few have a comprehensive approach. (Scott, 07:33)

• It’s Not Easy:
  Creating and operationalizing a formal plan requires cross-departmental collaboration and sustained effort—“not easy work to do.” (07:50)

4. Current Forces Affecting the Physician Experience

• Major Trends:

  • Ongoing and growing physician shortage (projected at 86,000 by 2034)
  • Increased competition (including non-traditional employers)
  • Changing physician expectations: greater flexibility, more meaningful work-life balance, professional growth, and executive support

• What Physicians Really Want:
  CHG’s recent internal study found the top physician desires are:

  1. Work-life balance
  2. Better workplace culture
  3. More administrative support
  4. Professional growth opportunities
  5. Increased autonomy
     (Scott, 09:11–10:01)

• Autonomy Explored
  Physicians seek three types of autonomy:

  • Clinical: Freedom to make patient care decisions
  • Schedule: Control over their workday structure
  • Strategic: Ability to shape their own practice's direction
    (Scott, 10:23–11:22)

• Compensation Not #1:
  While pay is important, autonomy, growth, and culture often matter more to physicians. (10:38)

5. Building Trust and Culture Through Leadership

• Leadership Behaviors that Build Trust:

  • Authenticity, empathy, and logical decision-making form the “trust triangle”
    From Frances Frey’s concept—leaders must be authentic, empathetic, and logical, or trust erodes.
    (Scott, 12:37)

  • Follow-through is vital:
    “The physician doesn’t mind if the answer is no; they just want someone to follow up and close the loop.” (Scott, 13:36)

  • Communication should prioritize storytelling and explain physician involvement in decision-making.

• Behaviors That Erode Trust:

  • Failing to follow up
  • Inauthentic or impersonal communications (just emails or PowerPoints)
  • Irrational or unexplained decisions
    (13:05–13:56)

6. Infrastructure: The Office of Physician & APP Relations

• Why Formalize Structure?

  • Physician needs often sprawl across multiple departments, leading to frustration and dropped issues.
  • A dedicated “Office of Physician & APP Relations,” ideally led by an administrative-physician dyad, centralizes resources (recruitment, credentialing, compensation, support).

• Anticipated Benefits:

  • Easier, clearer access for physicians to support
  • Stronger, long-term relationships past onboarding
  • Distinguishes organizations in a competitive landscape
    (Scott, 15:00–16:40)

• Personal Note:

  • Scott recounts a poignant moment where a physician expressed feeling forgotten after onboarding—a trigger for his passion for structured retention efforts. “You guys did a great job of recruiting and onboarding me, but you forgot about me.” (Scott, 16:43)

7. Practical Next Steps for Health Systems

• Immediate Priorities:

  1. Standardized and consistent onboarding for physicians and families
  2. Develop and implement a formal retention plan
  3. Foster executive leadership visibility and authenticity
  4. Create an Office of Physician & APP Relations
     (Scott, 17:59–18:37)

• Strategic Emphasis:
  Physician relations, recruitment, retention, and alignment should be a strategic priority every year.
  “They are the cornerstone of all healthcare organizations.” (Scott, 19:18)

Notable Quotes

• On treating physicians right:
  “If you take care of your docs, you take care of all your pillars of excellence.”
  — Scott Polenz (01:44)

• On retention planning:
  “The great organizations have a retention plan in place that will help them thrive in the future, but it’s not easy work to do.”
  — Scott Polenz (07:49)

• What physicians want:
  “We as organizations need to realize that physicians are humans… They want that balance, that connection, that culture, that clarity.”
  — Scott Polenz (11:10)

• Building trust:
  “If you’re off on one of [Frances Frey’s trust triangle], you’re not going to have the trust that you need… be authentic, be empathetic, be logical.”
  — Scott Polenz (12:43)

• After onboarding:
  “You guys did a great job of recruiting and onboarding me, but you forgot about me.”
  — Physician to Scott Polenz (16:43)

• On strategy:
  “Physician relations and recruitment and retention and onboarding and alignment should be in your strategic plan as a significant initiative each and every year… They are the cornerstone of all healthcare organizations.”
  — Scott Polenz (19:18)

Key Timestamps

• 00:33 — Erica asks about Scott’s background and its influence on his approach.
• 01:03–03:12 — Scott outlines why physician relations matter to organizational success.
• 04:15–06:43 — Defining alignment, engagement, and retention with detailed roadmap components.
• 07:14–08:11 — Challenges in creating and operationalizing formal retention plans.
• 08:47–11:43 — Forces impacting physician experience and what matters most to physicians.
• 12:22–14:24 — Leadership trust: what fosters or hinders it.
• 14:55–17:22 — Creating the Office of Physician & APP Relations and the rationale.
• 17:59–19:28 — Actionable next steps for systems to improve retention.

Conclusion & Final Thoughts

Scott Polenz presents a comprehensive, experience-driven blueprint for healthcare administrators to transform physician retention from an afterthought to a core strategic priority. By focusing distinctly on alignment, engagement, and retention—and building the predictable structures to support these goals—organizations can create a physician experience that delivers both clinical excellence and sustainable success.