Healers & dealers

While some physicians aggressively seek opportunities to build lucrative business ventures, others resist the intrusion of business issues and risks into their practices. A key to success is ensuring a good fit between an organization's business model and its physician's professional values and business dispositions. This article describes how to assess physicians' readiness for business risk, and it provides a framework for evaluating different business models in light of the professional values and business risk profiles of the organization's physicians. Finally the article provides a roadmap for actions to close gaps between the demands of the business model and the business dispositions of its physicians.