Over the next seven years, an estimated 6.5 million new healthcare jobs will be have to be filled, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A large number of those positions will be for physicians.
Healthcare HR managers will find it challenging to fill the majority of new jobs in the fast-growing healthcare industry, which will be for nurses, aides, and support staff. But it’s the need for more physicians that doesn’t bode well for the industry, based on the current state of physician hiring.
Consider some findings from the recent “In-House Physician Recruitment Benchmarking Report” from the Association of Staff Physician Recruiters. That study evaluates trends in the hiring of on-staff physicians and nurse practitioners. According to the ASPR, last year:
- 45 percent of searches were to replace a departing provider;
- 33 percent of vacancies were still unfilled at the end of a year;
- 131 days was the typical time period to fill a primary care position, the most sought-after of all physician roles.
Clearly the healthcare industry is scrambling just to keep up when it comes to physician hiring. At least that is the case with staff physicians.
[See also: Recruiting the entry-level workforce.]
“In recent years we were seeing less new recruitment due to the economy. Now we are seeing more physicians retiring,” noted Jennifer Metivier, executive director at the ASPR. She calls it the “greying of the physician workforce.”
The ASPR report bears that out. The rate of physician turnover in 2010 was 5.6 percent. In 2011, that figure rose to 6.3 percent. And in 2012 it was 7.2 percent.
“This trend is not surprising,” Metivier said. “With the improvement in the economy and the housing market, we’re seeing more physicians relocating or retiring, resulting in increased turnover.”
But it isn’t just the hope for better times ahead that is taking a toll on turnover. America’s physicians are a frustrated lot – fed up with long hours, increased regulations, healthcare reform in general, and changes in reimbursement practices. A majority of physicians would rather be doing something else, a recent national study revealed.
“There is a lot of disenchantment with the current state of healthcare,” said Jim Stone, president of the National Association of Physician Recruiters. As a result, healthcare is an industry with literally “thousands of opportunities,” Stone notes. “There are far more people leaving the market than entering it.”
Stone says the same recruitment challenges identified with in-house physicians exist industry-wide. At many hospitals, staff physicians make up a minority. Whether they are house staff or affiliated, a growing number of physicians are reducing their hours and downsizing their practices just when hospitals need the opposite.
As if the current physician shortage weren’t bad enough, the estimated 27 million newly insured Americans under the Affordable Care Act will also seek physician care in 2014, placing an even greater demand on an already short supply.
One area where the industry can act to improve physician recruitment is in the area of compensation. The problem isn’t that physicians don’t feel they make enough. They just feel they have to work too hard to get it.
Consider findings from The Medicus Firm Physician Practice Preference & Relocation Survey for 2013. In that study, 2,568 physicians representing 19 medical specialties and all 50 states commented on a variety of questions related to compensation, satisfaction, career goals, and attitudes about the industry.
Only 35 percent of physicians surveyed said they were satisfied with their income in 2012. The rest were either dissatisfied with the amount they made, or with how hard they had to work to make it.
Equally telling, 30 percent said that reimbursement decreases were the single greatest factor in limiting their income.
Asked what would be the primary motivation for making a career change in 2013, 28 percent said greater financial rewards. The number one response was that they were not considering a change (42 percent), but financial gain ranked as the second most popular response.
Confirming the trends identified by Metivier and Stone, The Medicus Firm study asked what physicians considered the two greatest concerns about their healthcare practice and career for 2013. Work/life balance and compensation/reimbursements were far and away the top two choices, with no other option coming even close.
Finally, asked what changes they made to their practice in 2012 or plan to make in 2013, the most common responses were: increase(d) hours worked (cited by 19 percent); implement(ed) EMR (17 percent); and decrease(d) hours worked (15 percent).
Neither Metivier nor Stone foresaw any immediate solution to the physician recruitment challenge. As Stone noted, there is, in effect, a “perfect storm:” retirement age physicians outnumber young members entering the ranks; over-worked physicians want to reduce their hours and care for fewer patients; and general disenchantment with the state of healthcare.