Feb 5, 2009: PracticeMatch's Healthcare Survey Defines Physician Recruitment Challenges

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PracticeMatch: Healthcare Survey Defines Physician Recruitment Challenges

Shortage forces hospitals across U.S. to recruit more, use alternate staffing methods

Published: February 5, 2009, PRNewswire

The most recent survey of in-house physician recruiters across the country revealed that the physician shortage is taking a toll on hospital systems throughout the United States, and recruiting departments are changing tactics and personnel to combat the lack of physicians to fill key provider roles. St. Louis-based PracticeMatch Services has officially released results from their most recent recruitment and retention survey of recruiting departments' and medical groups' responses to the physician shortage and departmental and fiscal changes.

Top findings include:

Growing Physician Shortage:
-- 15% of respondents had to fill between 100 and 800 provider openings before 2011; the average number of positions to be filled is approximately 31
-- 45% report over 1-year search time for all medical specialties
-- Nearly 75% reported needing to interview between 3 and 5 physicians for each open opportunity
-- 58% depend on Locum Tenens physicians (temporary staffing) to fill open positions until a permanent provider is found; most report using Locums to fill the role of Hospitalist, a field that continues to grow in demand and popularity in the medical community
-- 81% report a growing need for recruitment, while fewer than 6% reported a decrease

Methods of Recruitment:
-- 58% of respondents reported subscribing to physician databases, while nearly 33% outsource advertising, and 26.5% outsource direct mail services
-- 81% of the recruiters surveyed use online job placement boards to advertise opportunities and source candidates
-- The smallest percentage of responses was for print media through medical journals, with only 55% responding to the use of this service
-- The other sources used by most respondents were direct mail (64.8%) and e-mail campaigns (78.1%)
-- Only 20% of respondents used retained firms; 56% used contingent searches

The Effects of the Shortage on Recruiting Departments:
-- The number of recruiters hired over the past year has increased by 24.5%
-- A majority of respondents report difficulty in drawing candidates to their system or group, with 56% naming their location as the biggest detriment to hiring physicians
-- Almost all respondents listed compensation and location as the top priorities they have found physicians have when looking at an opportunity
-- 61% of respondents said a strong demand exists among physicians for lower to no call schedules, with an added emphasis on quality of life

About PracticeMatch

Based in St. Louis, PracticeMatch is the industry leader in providing data and services to in-house physician recruiters and offers a continuum of services designed to provide a clear competitive hiring advantage to health organizations. The company has a history of innovation, being the first to offer physician databases online, the first to fully integrate all recruitment-related services, and the first to launch an online career center with streaming video of both candidates and employers

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