For the first of our FredTalks, we sat down with Maegan Moore, Director of Physician Recruitment + Onboarding at Essential. We wanted to understand what makes her tick, what drew her to Essential, and what she sees as the great promise of the business.
Tell us about your role at Essential.
I joined Essential to help build a new model for recruiting physicians and inviting them into the culture of our business. It’s an exciting position because it allows me to leverage my 14 years of experience in radiology to harvest insights and best practices to create a fresh approach to supporting an incredibly talented team over the long haul.
Recruiting isn’t an isolated role at Essential. It is part of a larger holistic vision for how we work seamlessly with both our team physicians and our clients in hospitals, health systems and radiology practices. This focus on alignment and interconnectivity in the business is part of my job — just as it’s part of everyone’s job — at Essential.
What drew you to Essential?
I’m delighted with my key role in recruitment at Essential, since working with radiologists is my real passion. I have always found them to be the unsung heroes of the medical profession, because the work they do is absolutely fundamental to the ability of patient-facing physicians to do their work effectively. Radiologists save thousands of lives every day and they rarely get credit for their incredible contributions to quality of patient care. My role at Essential allows me to be an advocate for the radiologists who are part of our team, allowing me to see what they love about their work, what challenges them, and everything in between. As the Director of Physician Recruiting + Onboarding, I get to build authentic relationships with physicians who have values that align with the culture at Essential — people who are keen on joining us to build something extraordinary.
What systemic problems, issues and constraints are you addressing?
The ethos of Essential is inspirational and exciting to me — because it’s grounded in a view that physicians have become highly commoditized in the radiology industry and aren’t treated with the respect and gravitas they deserve. At the same time, the commitment to patient care has been replaced with a narrow focus on profitability. The mandate to change these prevailing dynamics is at the core of the business’ vision, and that gives my work at Essential a tremendous sense of purpose.
How is Essential able to deliver on the promises it makes to the physicians you hire?
Well, let’s start with the basics. Essential isn’t for everybody. Our goal is to be a tailored, agile radiology group with a caring, respectful culture that is the antithesis of what we’re seeing within the industry today. We are not the status quo. Far from it.
We’ve structured the business with lower SG&A than large radiology practices with hundreds of employees and numerous locations. Our model, focused on being a boutique with a solutions-based approach, allows us to keep overhead down, compensate our radiologists well and maintain reasonable pricing for our clients. At the same time, we aren’t focused on being the lowest-cost provider, and competing in a way that commoditizes the services our radiologists provide.
How do you spot a good fit?
From the outset, the candidate has to match our culture, and has to want to participate in building our culture. We make no apologies about the fact that we are an early-stage company and that is enormously appealing to radiologists who are wired to participate. They want to be part of making history, co creating and having an impact on how the business takes shape. These enthusiastic, confident, purpose-driven physicians, just by their attitudes and energy, illuminate the Essential culture in very authentic ways every day, because they are on the front lines with our clients. And when they demonstrate their combination of passion and expertise in the course of building relationships, our clients take notice, and patients are the ultimate beneficiaries.
What great impact do you expect to make on the field of radiology?
Every analysis of the radiology profession points to the fact that record numbers of physicians are leaving the market, and the numbers of new radiologists coming out of medical school are shrinking. If radiologists continue to opt out of the profession, it is going to have a catastrophic impact. Radiologists, simply ARE the doctors’ doctors. They provide the information and insights behind the scenes that enable physicians to treat patients. So if we lose radiologists, the entire continuum of care will suffer. This is part of the mission Essential is on — to reimagine the delivery of radiology services that provides physicians with reasons to stay — while reimagining the profession to attract new participants for generations to come.