Hiring a CEO for a Physician-Owned Medical Group: An Arizona Guide

Arizona Center for Cancer Care named David Price, MHA, MBA, as chief executive officer on September 8, 2026. The appointment is a timely reminder that hiring a CEO for a physician-owned medical group requires a different scorecard than hiring a hospital executive or a conventional corporate leader.

According to Arizona Center for Cancer Care, Price brings more than 25 years of Phoenix-area healthcare leadership experience. He most recently served as HonorHealth’s senior vice president and chief growth officer, previously led ambulatory operations and a regional hospital, and spent more than a decade in Banner Health leadership roles. The organization describes itself as a physician-owned, multispecialty practice with more than 55 offices and 134 physicians.

The announcement does not disclose AZCCC’s selection process or signal a specific expansion or restructuring plan. It does, however, offer a useful Arizona example of a large physician-owned group choosing an executive with health-system, ambulatory and growth experience.

Why the CEO role is different in a physician-owned group

In a physician-owned organization, doctors may be clinicians, owners, board members, revenue producers and operational stakeholders at the same time. A CEO must lead the business while respecting clinical judgment and the governance rights of the owners.

That changes how authority works. A hospital-system executive may be accustomed to a defined hierarchy and centralized support departments. A physician-group CEO often has to create alignment across partners, specialties and locations where influence matters as much as formal authority.

This does not mean hospital leaders cannot make the transition. Experience with scaled operations, service-line strategy, quality, capital planning and multidisciplinary teams can transfer well. The search process must test whether a candidate can adapt those skills to physician ownership, practice economics and a more partnership-driven culture.

Define the mandate before evaluating candidates

The most important work happens before the first interview. A board should be able to explain what the next CEO must accomplish in the first 24 months, which decisions belong to the CEO, which require physician approval and how disagreement will be resolved.

MGMA’s recent guidance on physician executive roles makes a related point: organizations should map the work and define authority before writing the job description. A strong candidate cannot compensate for a role whose scope, decision rights or resources are unclear.

Before launching the search, physician owners should agree on:

• The two or three outcomes that will define a successful first two years
• The CEO’s authority over budgets, hiring, compensation, vendors, locations and service-line investments
• The working relationship among the CEO, board chair, managing physician and other physician leaders
• The balance between enterprise standards and local or specialty-level autonomy
• The financial, access, quality, workforce and culture measures the board will review

A practical CEO candidate scorecard

The following HealthOp framework is an illustrative starting point, not an industry benchmark. Each group should adjust the weighting to reflect its ownership structure, strategy and current operating problems.

1. Physician governance and trust: 25%

Look for evidence that the candidate can work with physician owners who may hold different priorities. Strong candidates explain how they build trust, make decision rights visible, handle disagreement and turn board direction into accountable execution.

2. Multisite operations and consistency: 20%

A growing group needs reliable operations without treating every office as identical. Ask how the candidate has standardized scheduling, staffing, revenue-cycle workflows, technology and performance reporting while preserving appropriate clinical flexibility.

3. Strategy and responsible growth: 15%

Growth experience matters only when it connects to patient demand, physician capacity, capital, workforce supply and integration. Candidates should be able to distinguish sustainable expansion from adding locations or service lines faster than the organization can support them.

4. Financial stewardship and physician economics: 15%

The CEO should understand practice-level profitability, cash flow, payer mix, compensation design, capital allocation and the financial effect of operational decisions. Just as important, the candidate must be able to explain those issues clearly to owners without reducing every decision to short-term margin.

5. Talent, culture and succession: 15%

A CEO influences whether physicians, advanced-practice providers, clinical staff and administrators want to stay. Evaluate the candidate’s record on leadership development, difficult-to-fill roles, accountability, employee communication and succession planning.

6. Quality, access and compliance: 10%

Operational growth cannot come at the expense of care quality, access or regulatory discipline. The candidate should show how quality, patient experience, compliance and workforce capacity are built into operating decisions rather than reviewed after the fact.

Arizona market knowledge can serve as a useful tie-breaker across all six categories. Relationships with local physicians, health systems, payers, education partners and community organizations may shorten the learning curve, but local familiarity should not replace evidence of leadership effectiveness.

What transfers from hospital leadership, and what must change

A candidate from a major health system may bring valuable experience in complexity, clinical service lines, capital planning, risk management and leading large teams. Price’s publicly reported background across growth, ambulatory operations and hospital leadership illustrates that type of transferable portfolio.

Physician-owned groups should still test for several important adaptations:

• From hierarchy to partnership: Can the candidate lead through physician influence and shared governance?
• From enterprise resources to practical execution: Can the candidate operate effectively with a leaner corporate structure?
• From system strategy to practice economics: Can the candidate connect strategy to provider capacity, compensation and day-to-day workflows?
• From uniformity to thoughtful standardization: Can the candidate identify what must be consistent and what should remain specialty-specific?
• From executive presentation to owner communication: Can the candidate explain tradeoffs candidly enough for physicians to make informed decisions?

The American Medical Association identifies operational fluency, data literacy, emotional intelligence, financial stewardship and the ability to bring others along as important elements of modern physician leadership. Those same capabilities should be visible in the administrative CEO who partners with physician leaders.

Interview questions that reveal fit

Behavioral and scenario-based questions are more useful than asking candidates to describe their leadership style in general terms. Consider questions such as:

1. Tell us about a time physician owners or clinical leaders disagreed on a major operating decision. What was your role, and what happened?
2. Which decisions should be centralized across a multisite group, and which should remain local?
3. How would you evaluate a proposed new location or service line when physician support is strong but staffing capacity is uncertain?
4. What operating and workforce measures would you put in front of the board each month?
5. How have you improved physician or staff retention without relying only on compensation?
6. What would you need to learn in your first 100 days before recommending significant change?

Red flags physician owners should not ignore

• The candidate describes physicians primarily as employees to be managed instead of owners and clinical partners.
• The growth story is impressive, but the candidate cannot explain integration, staffing, access or financial results.
• The candidate expects decision rights to become clear after accepting the role.
• References praise visibility and presentation skills but provide few examples of accountable execution.
• The board cannot agree on whether it wants a strategist, operator, change leader or stabilizer.

How to structure a stronger executive search

1. Align the owners. Resolve the mandate, authority and success measures before approaching candidates.
2. Build the scorecard. Weight the competencies that matter for the group’s actual next chapter.
3. Map more than one talent pool. Consider leaders from physician-owned groups, ambulatory networks, specialty platforms and health systems rather than assuming one background is automatically best.
4. Use evidence-based interviews. Give finalists the same operating scenario and score their response against predefined criteria.
5. Reference the hard moments. Ask former colleagues how the candidate handled physician conflict, missed targets, turnover and unpopular decisions.
6. Make onboarding part of selection. Agree on the first 100-day listening plan, board cadence and decision boundaries before the start date.

The bottom line

The best CEO is not necessarily the candidate with the largest title or the longest health-system résumé. It is the leader whose experience matches the group’s mandate and who can convert physician-owner priorities into consistent operations, responsible growth and a workplace where clinicians and staff can succeed.

If your Arizona healthcare organization needs help identifying and evaluating hard-to-find leaders, learn more about HealthOp’s direct-to-hire recruiting or explore our broader support for healthcare employers.