Employing a young associate shouldn’t commit you to making him or her your future partner. Since selecting the wrong partner can make your life significantly worse, you should be extremely critical about making this decision. Below we discuss the three criteria an associate must meet to prove they can be a “good partner.”

With the growing number of group practices, the decision about promoting associates into partnership is becoming increasingly important. Unfortunately, many owner doctors have a lackadaisical view of what it should mean to be a partner. They consider young doctors as their “partners” virtually from their date of hire, then promote them to partnership status almost automatically after just a few years as an associate.

This casual promotion to partner usually results from an unwillingness to face up to a very critical decision. Adding a partner is, in reality, a “business...