Recruitment costly for health systems
With the current physician shortage and the ongoing economic recession, the recruitment department in a healthcare organization has become very important.
On average, it can cost an organization $1.2 million per year for recruitment costs, according to Connie C. Long, a member of the Association of Staff Physician Recruiters and director of Physician Recruitment for Fargo, N.D.-based Innovis Health, which serves western Minnesota and eastern North Dakota.
Long said it can cost up to $20,000 to recruit a doctor, including relocation costs. Interviews alone can run $2,500-$5,000.
“I don’t think anybody is having an easy time with it,” said Laura Screeney, who works in the Office of Physician Recruitment at Raymond W. Bliss Army Health Center in Fort Huachuca, Ariz. “Although people are doing more recruiting using online resources. It’s less expensive and streamlines the recruitment process.”
Organizations that use in-house recruitment have been able to keep the costs contained. External recruitment services can charge up to 25 percent of a physician’s first year of pay, and some agencies are charging a flat fee of $1,800 to $2,500.
Residency and training programs are the most popular recruitment sources for Long.
Practice Link and Practice Match are two outside recruitment services. The yearly costs for each service can run a practice $12,000-$18,000, for which they receive physician profiles daily.
Last year was Long’s most successful in 20 years of recruiting and it may have had something to do with the economy, she said.
It cost Long $10,000-$15,000 to recruit each of the 46 physicians she managed to attract to Innovis, which has one hospital and 23 clinics, in 2008. Out of the $400,000-$500,000 in total recruitment costs for the year, Innovis spent only $48,000 for outside recruitment services in 2008.
Long was hired to help eliminate the inefficient “Locum Tenens” process, what she terms a “huge cost” for recruiting departments. It costs much more for a temporary physician than a permanent one.
“Retention programs are pretty new,” said Long. “Ours starts the day they begin work with us. They’re very minimal costs, but it means the world to the physicians.”
There are two-year pay incentives written into all contracts for physicians at Innovis.
No matter where you recruit, the basic premise is the same, said Screeney, although it is more difficult to recruit doctors for rural areas. Many physicians won’t move to a rural area unless work is available for their spouses as well, she said.
