But having a management degree doesn’t automatically translate to more money in every executive position. Physician CEOs with an MMM made $37,000 less than those without a degree; CMOs with an MMM made $51,000 more than those without a degree—a difference based partially on the reality that an MMM often is a degree pursued by aspiring CMOs.
“The conversations are changing very much. There are a lot of other emerging roles. I think sometimes that the varied opportunities that exist, whether or not people know about them at the beginning of our conversation, can really color the decisions that people make later.”
—Rebekah Apple, MA, senior manager of physician services and support, career counselor, American College of Physician Executives
Mission C
One of the most fundamental questions facing hospitalists with advancement aspirations is “Can I get to the C-suite without that extra degree?”
In some cases, the answer is “no.”
At Banner Health, a system with facilities throughout the western U.S., all C-suite executives have to have an advanced degree of some kind, generally an MBA or MHA, says Kathy Bollinger, president of the Arizona West Region at Banner. She recently hired former hospitalist Steve Narang, MD, MHCM, FAAP, MBA, as CEO of Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix.
It wasn’t merely Dr. Narang’s MBA that earned him the position. Bollinger says his knowledge, experience, and her own confidence in him during a transitional period in the U.S. healthcare landscape played key roles in the decision.
But the degree rule is in place, she notes, because at Banner, the degree is seen as so crucial to cultivating the kind of knowledge and person capable of being a good hospital administrator.
“His business degree is clearly part of him and part of his effectiveness,” Bollinger says. “So I’m not sure that I could have observed in Steve the things that I observed in Steve had not he not been more globally trained, if you will.”
Doctors and administrators, she says, tend not to think alike.
“I would say physicians, medical staff members of a hospital, and administrators of a hospital historically, in a stereotyped way, have been predisposed to be at odds with one another,” she says. The formal education is a way to expand a physician’s way of thinking, she adds.
“The business thinking and financial aptitude that is required at our big hospitals is such that it would be a stretch for somebody who didn’t either have a degree or was deep into it from an experience standpoint,” she says. “For me, that was very significant.”
When the Cleveland Clinic was looking for a new CEO at South Pointe Hospital in 2012, they tapped a doctor without a management degree—Brian Harte, MD, SFHM, a hospitalist who had been chief operating officer at another hospital within the system. At the time of Dr. Harte’s promotion, Cleveland Clinic Regional Hospitals President David Bronson, MD, who also does not have an advanced management degree, praised Dr. Harte’s experience.
“His expertise in quality will help South Pointe Hospital continue to provide the best experience for patients,” Dr. Bronson said in a news release at the time.
What can’t be denied, however, is that many physicians in executive roles do, in fact, have post-graduate degrees. According to the ACPE’s survey, 40% of the doctors surveyed had an MBA, an MMM, an MPH, or an MHA. Of those, 52% had an MBA. The survey includes everyone from CEOs to associate professors.
Even so, an advanced degree is not a magic wand.