When I ask potential clients this question, the answer is often the name of one or two competing groups or of a few individual physicians.  Sometimes it just draws a blank -- he or she just doesn't know who the competitors are.

In truth, the question is a bit of a ruse, because no matter what the response, it's highly unlikely, until now that is, that anyone would give me an answer of the type I've been looking for.

I'm not looking for a radiology group to give me a list of other radiologists or for an orthopedic surgeon to let me know the names of the other surgeons in his community

Rather, from my perspective, a well run medical group doesn't consider other groups within their specialty to be their competitors:  A superior level of medical skills, what many consider to be the determining factor in their practice's competitive advantage, is, in my world view, simply the price of admission.  Without superior medical skills you aren't even going to be invited to the table; but even if you have them, they are nothing that is going to lead to breakthrough success. 

Instead, groups seeking a transformationally better future need to focus beyond the medical service they provide to the entire experience offered to their patients, to their referral sources and to the facilities at which they practice, because experience, especially in a world in which individuals are more frequently distanced from one another by way of technology, is what people crave. 

The response that I'm looking for when I ask prospective clients to tell me whom their competitors are is "Ritz Carlton" or "Four Seasons" or something similar.  There are thousands of hotels and dozens of hotel chains.  Many provide clean rooms and perfectly acceptable, even well above average, amenities, but few are in a class by themselves.  The Ritz doesn't provide a room - it provides an experience, in competition with other superlative experiences outside of the "hotel" business. 

You're an anesthesiologist.  You're a radiologist.  You're an E.R. doc.  But your competitor is the Ritz. 

What is your practice doing to provide this same level of experience?  What standards have you enacted?  How do you measure your performance?  How does your governance structure allow for this to be accomplished?  How do you incentivize, and disincentivize, your employed or subcontracted physicians in this regard?