Our proven surgicalist strategies and unique call models have transformed surgical on call from an expensive EMTALA requirement into a strategic asset. Our dedicated groups provide stronger physician/hospital alignment and better care collaboration, resulting in a reduction of outmigration, improved surgical volume growth, and higher patient and medical staff satisfaction.
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Surgical Colleagues is the evolution of our leadership team's accumulated experience and the knowledge needed to successfully partner with hospitals and surgeons to develop uniquesurgical practices. Our team was among the first to develop surgicalist / ER on-call models back in the mid-2000’s. We are not your typical staffing firm for medical vacancies – we are your partner in developing a dedicated practice specific to your needs, with qualified surgeons that fit your culture, supported by full time management aligned with your organization’s service line goals and values.
Schedule a ConsultationWe deliver comprehensive hospital based surgical partners for: General Surgery, including Acute Care Surgery and Trauma, Orthopedic Surgery and fracture care, Neurosurgery and Gastroenterology. Our roots were established providing acute care surgical coverage / Emergency Department On-Call solutions. That model has evolved to allow us to create solutions aimed at filling elective practice needs.
Schedule a ConsultationWe are a hospital-based surgical partner and practice. Surgicalist programs improve patient outcomes by ensuring consistent, reliable emergency surgical coverage. With board-certified surgeons and a dedicated care team available 24/7/365 and focused solely on patients who present to your hospital, patients receive timely surgical treatment without delays—driving better clinical results and enhanced hospital performance.
Because we are based in the hospital, we closely align internally to provide a more integratedand cost-effective patient experience that improves our partner hospital’s competitive position.
Your surgical call coverage should be a strategic asset, not an expensive headache. Let us transform the way specialists in your hospital operate in your community–and improve your competitive position! This is not traditional locums coverage. We are an innovative provider of permanent specialty practice models that operate inside your hospital. We provide quality, engaged physicians committed to fulfilling our hospital partners' goals and initiatives.
Our focused approach provides operational, clinical, and strategic advantages to enhance the enterprise value of our hospital partners’ specialty service lines.
Recruitment: We offer an unmatched quality of life and a rewarding practice environment to recruit and retain the best candidates.
Process: Full program management includes scheduling, license and credentialing, follow up clinic, front end billing support, marketing support, etc.
Execution: We install proven systems, key infrastructure, and effective leadership to support our physicians and practices. Through a hands on medical director, clinical leadership is integrated throughout our programs.
Accountability: We continuously monitor, review and report program metrics. Performance improvement opportunities are identified and our processes are fine tuned to achieve best practices and reduce practice variability.
Providing a stable team of physicians to improve consistency and collaboration
Decrease patient care and workflow inconsistencies and reduce unnecessary utilizationand costs
Being closer to the patient and providing more responsive care, better carecollaboration, with a goal of decreasing Length of Stay
Market share and patient access to surgical services
Physician recruitment, retention and medical staff satisfaction
Physician alignment and collaboration to improve patient outcomes and health
Service line improvement
Times have changed and so have we. Our value proposition has evolved to reflect hospital’s shifting needs across multiple surgical service lines. Surgicalist programs can be expanded to include an elective scope of care to help hospitals better meet community needs.
We take an entrepreneurial approach to understanding our client’s specific needs, internal and community resources, and the competitive pressures in every market. We collaborate to design the best strategies to maximize existing resources and optimize our contributions while minimizing cost. All our models are designed by surgeons to ensure clinical quality while simultaneously creating recruiting advantages in this increasingly competitive environment.
Our unique model provides 24/7 Surgicalist coverage, onsite physician leadership, follow upcare via hospital-based clinic, rounds, consults, inpatient and outpatient surgeries, dischargeplanning, operational expertise, and proven infrastructure to support our practices. Relieving the local specialists of call improves their access to new patients and their capacity to performmore elective surgeries at the hospital. Improving call coverage will decrease outmigration and attract higher acuity patients, resulting in more emergent surgeries.
Everyone WINS! The hospitals see more surgeries, local physicians see more patients, and patients receive better service.
When indicated, the scope of care can be broadened to include and support an elective component to augment specialty coverage for hospitals that want/need to improve patient access. Integrating our emergent and elective models have provided tighter physician alignment, new revenues, lower costs, and recruiting advantages.
All of our practice models have been designed to create recruiting advantages in this increasingly competitive healthcare area. Surgical Colleagues provides predictable schedules that maximize our surgeon’s opportunity for work/life balance. We offer attractive compensation, malpractice insurance, professional fee billing, and practice management expertise to provide a more attractive practice environment.
We recruit a stable and cohesive team of board-certified surgeons with the skill set commensurate with your hospital designation and an established clinical scope of practice. We offer a different, less complicated practice option that was designed by surgeons to provide a better alternative to the traditional model. As a result, we experience very little turnover! Our retention rate is more than 95% for all our specialties.
Surgical Colleagues is a seasoned team of healthcare executives and surgeons with decades of experience in developing and managing successful surgical hospitalist programs. We have a unique commitment to innovation and strive to be the absolute best partner for hospitals looking to deliver value, quality patient care, and satisfaction.
We have the experience and unique qualifications necessary to be successful in the surgicalist and hospital based surgical staffing field. Our leaders pioneered the design and implementation of these programs in more than 50 hospitals nationwide.
Gene is a professional healthcare administrator with more than 25 years of management experience in hospital and physician group practice operations. He was among the original leaders at Delphi Healthcare Partners and helped pioneer the surgical hospitalist model. Gene has extensive experience designing and implementing hospital-based programs and providing high-quality client services. He is keenly sensitive to hospital/physician relationships, medical staff politics and the financial realities in today’s environment.
Robin serves as the Senior Vice President of Operations for Surgical Colleagues. With more than 25 years of experience in healthcare, Robin offers expertise in physician recruitment, contracting, leadership development, practice management and client relations. She served as Senior Vice President for a nationally recognized hospital-based physician management company, Vice President of Operations for Delphi Healthcare Partners and Senior Director for a hospital’s physician services department. As one of the more experienced executives in the field, Robin is proficient in hospital-based program development, management and operations. Her enthusiasm and commitment to excellence is known and respected throughout the industry.
As a Board Certified Neurosurgeon actively practicing at the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville (a Level 1 Trauma Center and Comprehensive Stroke Center) he has two decades of experience in academic and clinical neurosurgery. He is Assistant Professor and Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery at the University of Tennessee Graduate School of Medicine, has served as Chairman of the Neurosciences Department at Fort Sander's Regional Medical Center (a Comprehensive Stroke Center), is immediate Past President of the Tennessee Neurosurgical Society, has chaired the Contract and Finance Committee and served on the Board of Directors of a 200+ physician multi-specialty IPA, served as President of University Neurosurgery PC for, has successfully negotiated multiple contracts for neurosurgical and multi-specialty physician reimbursement, and has held numerous hospital staff credentialing and leadership positions.
His extensive clinical and administrative experience enables Surgical Colleagues to work with clients to develop customized clinical neurosurgery programs tailored to the institution's individual needs, goals, and resources. Dr. Killeffer’s physician leadership and academic experience ensures that we can recruit and vet superlative neurosurgeons whose training and abilities are ideally suited to the client's individual neurosurgery program.
Kurt Ehlert, MD is an orthopedic surgeon and physician executive presently serving as Strategic Advisor, Orthopedics for Surgical Colleagues. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the Medical College of Wisconsin’s medical school and orthopedic residency. After serving in the United States Air Force, he worked in private practice in Milwaukee and Raleigh. For the last several years, he has played a key role in the development and maturation of the orthopedic and general surgery hospitalist model, working with hospitals across the country of various sizes and complexities.
Dr. Ehlert is a recognized national expert on the orthopedic hospitalist model and has spoken at many regional and national conferences and published a number of articles on this new, expanding mode of acute orthopedic care. In addition to his Strategic Advisor role, he currently works as an orthopedic hospitalist for WakeMed in Raleigh, North Carolina. He received his Certified Physician Executive degree from the American Association for Physician Leadership in 2015.
With over four decades of healthcare staffing, management, and business development experience, Mr. Boggio is ideally qualified to support hospital executives and clinical leaders in solving operational issues and achieving measurable improvements in clinical performance.
Frank values developing long-lasting partnerships with his hospital and system clients to improve accessibility to high-quality healthcare regardless of the clinical setting.