CASE STUDY #3

Managed Care Company Implements Tiered Approach to Search and Reaches Beyond Healthcare

Opportunity
The Southwest-based claims processing operation of the nation’s second largest managed care company needed a new General Manager. The company had already terminated one General Manager due to lackluster claims performance as compared to other regions. The new executive would manage some 500 employees in an intense, high-volume environment involving the processing of electronic, telephonic and paper transactions.

Solution

• Recruit directly out of competing managed care companies with similar employee numbers and transaction volume
• Identify alternatives to finding candidates within similarly sized healthcare operations.
• Seek out candidates from high-transaction environments within other industries.
• Work closely with consultants who specialize in the claims business.

Implementation

• Identify expectations and sources of candidates and referrals with corporate executives.
• Document expectations, style and cultural issues with regional team members.
• Broker and blend corporate and regional expectations, goals, needs, preferences, and solutions.
• Create a written profile featuring expectations, challenges, cultural dynamics and a position description.
• Develop and refine a tiered search strategy: (1) healthcare claims processing, (2) high-transaction environments outside of healthcare, (3) suppliers of claims processing technologies, and (4) associations and opinion leaders.

Results

• The candidate was hired and working within 55 days of the signed search engagement.
• The new general manager was hired away from a well-known, Fortune 100 company with a reputation for handling large volume transactions.

Lessons Learned

• Consult corporate and regional offices on needs, goals and expectations for candidates, making sure all parties are on the same page.
• Look beyond obvious or likely sources of prospects.
• Evaluate the constraints and opportunities of searching for candidates outside of healthcare.
• Consider a multi-tiered approach to search, beginning with your own industry and then branching out to similar environments in other industries.
• Tap vendors, societies, and associations as referral sources.
• Seek candidates who may come from outside of healthcare, but who have some healthcare experience.
• Hire the best and the brightest—no matter what their industry. “These individuals typically have a short runway to learning a new business,” says Brad Newpoff, CEO of BeechTree Partners.