Annual Benchmarking Report Provides Industry Data from Internal Physician and Provider Recruitment Professionals

The Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR), has released its annual Internal Physician and Provider Recruitment Benchmarking Report, highlighting search dynamics and trends within physician and provider recruitment and their impact on recruiting and hiring in health care. AAPPR’s research identifies the critical variables that affect search success rates and time-to-fill metrics. The report found that for the first time in five years, the percentage of filled searches increased.

The report, which provides industry data to help inform health organizations’ workforce planning and growth management, also found that the number of active physician searches for organizations per year continues to increase. Advanced practice provider (APP) searches also continue to increase as the physician shortage grows, and make up more than half of all searches per department. At the same time, the number of recruitment staff decreased for the first time since 2020, and nearly one in five recruiters left their positions in 2023.

“For the first time in five years, we’re seeing an increase in successful physician searches – a testament to our recruitment professionals’ resilience amid an ongoing physician shortage,” said Carey Goryl, CEO of AAPPR. “Our data clearly shows that properly staffed and resourced recruitment teams reduce time-to-fill, yet high turnover and fewer recruiters in the field pose significant challenges to healthcare organizations’ ability to secure talent and maintain quality patient care. We must invest in recruitment professionals and adapt our strategies, as they are crucial to our health care system’s success.”

Nearly 150 member health organizations of AAPPR, the leading authority on physician recruitment, onboarding and retention, participated in the extensive annual research study representing more than 17,000 searches, 58% of which were specific to physicians.

Additional notable report findings include:

• Family Medicine continues to be the most common physician search (10% of all physician searches), and 81% of organizations searched for the specialty in 2023. Hospital Medicine (9%), OB/GYN: General (6%) and Internal Medicine (5%) were the next most common searches.
• After decreasing in 2022, the percentage of offers accepted increased in 2023 for both physicians and APPs. On average, APPs accepted 71% of offers extended to them, and physicians accepted 83% of their offers.
• In 2023, the median time to hire physicians—measured from search launch to signed contract—varied widely by specialty, spanning 77 to 228 days.
• Turnover among physicians and APPs has decreased year-over-year but is still higher than 2019 and 2020.
• Satisfaction with compensation among recruitment professionals decreased to 55% in 2023, compared to 67% who rated their compensation as “Good” or “Excellent” in 2019.
• Two thirds of recruitment professionals reported that their work/life balance is “Good” or “Excellent,” which increased from 2019.

The industry-level data in AAPPR’s Benchmarking Report helps recruitment professionals and departments prepare, plan and forecast to meet the challenges of an evolving healthcare landscape where every unfilled position directly impacts patient care delivery. This report consists of two chapters representing different type of survey results, one regarding compensation and one regarding searches.

Organizations that participate in the annual survey gain free access to AAPPR’s benchmarking portal, where they can run custom benchmark comparisons to other organizations and departments similar to their own. The benchmarking portal includes time to fill and compensation calculators and enables users to compare a range of data, including organizational profiles, search information, recruiter profile data, and recruiter compensation figures, helping them make more informed decisions.

The complete 2024 AAPPR Internal Physician and Provider Recruitment Benchmarking Report is available to organizations for sale online. To order, visit https://aappr.org/research/benchmarking/.

About The Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR)
The Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR) is a nationally recognized leader in health care provider recruitment, onboarding, and retention. For more than 30 years, AAPPR has empowered physician and advanced practice provider recruitment leaders to transform care delivery in their communities by providing best-in-class practices, up-to-date industry knowledge, and evolving innovative approaches for hiring, onboarding, and retaining exceptional clinical talent. To learn more or to become an organizational member of AAPPR, please visit https://aappr.org/join-now.