For about two decades now, America has been dealing with a shortage of medical professionals. While this growing deficit applies to all areas of the healthcare industry, primary care physicians and other doctors are in particularly short supply. Initially, analysts predicted a shortage of nearly 50,000 doctors within the next decade. Now, though, they’re expecting that figure to surpass 85,000. With that being the case, medical facilities need to find ways to attract and retain doctors so they can continue to meet their goals as well as their patients’ needs and expectations.
Exploring Physician Recruitment Strategies
Certain recruitment strategies have proven highly effective for medical facilities. Not all of them are practical options for all healthcare facilities. Still, each one does its part to help with bringing in and holding onto qualified medical professionals.
Partnering With Healthcare Staffing Agencies
One highly effective way to recruit physicians is to partner with a healthcare staffing agency. These agencies work with medical facilities that are looking to fill open positions as well as doctors looking for work, and they can help bring the two together. They can help clients find candidates to fill both temporary and permanent roles, and they have extensive networks of medical professionals with diverse employment needs, expectations, and qualifications.
Staffing agencies can streamline recruitment in several ways. They pair medical professionals with the jobs that best meet their needs and find candidates that most closely meet healthcare facilities’ requirements. They cover background checks and credentialing while also scheduling interviews and handling compliance considerations. They also help with the onboarding process and offer post-placement support, both of which can go a long way toward successfully attracting and retaining doctors.
Focusing on Work-Life Balance
Another way to draw in physicians and reduce turnover rates is to focus on creating an optimal work-life balance for staff members. Many people leave the medical facilities they’re working for or walk away from the healthcare field altogether because of long work hours, little time off, and heavy patient loads among other issues. Those problems bring about a great deal of stress and high risks of burnout.
Offering flexible scheduling and other options for creating a better work-life balance can be an effective pull factor for doctors who are looking for employment opportunities. Find ways to reduce the time and effort doctors have to spend on administrative tasks. Have adequate support personnel on hand. Offer opportunities for providing telehealth services either exclusively or part time. Those are only a few of the ways medical facilities can support employees’ work-life balance. Being sure to emphasize those options for prospects is also important.
Competitive Compensation
Offering competitive compensation is another way to bring in and retain physicians. Salaries are important here, but they’re only part of the picture. Other incentives can be equally attractive. Those might include paid time off, employer match retirement plans, relocation assistance, continuing education allowances, and malpractice insurance coverage to name a few. Benefits like those can draw physicians to medical facilities they might otherwise overlook in their job searches and make them more likely to stay with those facilities after being hired.
Improving Your Approach to Recruitment
For today’s medical facilities, recruiting and retaining physicians is essential. It’s also growing increasingly challenging. Because of that, many healthcare facilities need to modify their recruitment strategies. Those listed here are among the most effective ways to attract physicians and encourage them to stay with their employers for the long haul.
