The Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR) is redefining recruitment to retention and is the only professional organization where physician and provider recruitment leaders and others who influence recruitment, onboarding and retention can connect, learn and advance their careers.
The Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR)’s annual Internal Physician and Provider Recruitment Benchmarking Report is officially available. The report is packed with valuable insights designed to transform your recruitment and retention strategies. Most starkly, it highlights the effects of the increasing physician shortage in the United States and the impact it has had on health organizations’ in-house recruitment teams across the country.
As many of you likely know, as recruitment professionals it can be difficult to set tangible goals, productivity levels and benchmarks of success without access to relevant industry data. The benchmarking report provides that exact credible industry data, based on real recruitment professionals’ experience. This report is geared to help our members, their leaders, and the broader physician and provider recruitment industry prepare, plan and forecast to meet the challenges of the evolving healthcare landscape.
Key Takeaways for 2023
More than 150 member health organizations participated in the extensive research study, representing more than 19,000 searches (60% specific to physicians). The Bureau of Labor Statistics projects about 24,200 openings for physicians and surgeons each year, on average, over the decade, meaning the data from AAPPR’s Benchmarking Report represents close to half of all physician searches in the United States.
Some notable key findings from this year’s report include:
Over 24,000 Ways to Customize Data Outputs
Alongside the 70-page PDF report, recipients gain access to an array of valuable custom online resources. Dive into infographics highlighting nine key takeaways about recruiter data, offering concise yet impactful snapshots of crucial insights. Another infographic unveils 11 pivotal findings regarding search data, providing at-a-glance access to critical trends shaping the industry.
AAPPR’s commitment to empowering healthcare recruitment professionals goes beyond static reports. Our innovative reporting portal offers a dashboard that unlocks over 24,000 ways to customize data outputs. This dashboard lets you manipulate the data of over 19,000 searches in ways that precisely reflect your unique organization, sourcing needs, goals, and objectives. It also lets you filter compensation data on 600 recruitment professionals. Whether you’re fine-tuning strategies, making data-driven decisions, or seeking to optimize staffing solutions, the benchmarking report empowers you and your team to tailor the information to your needs. It’s more than data; it’s a blueprint for shaping recruitment strategies that drive excellence in healthcare staffing, putting the power of innovation firmly in your hands.
If your organization participated in the annual survey to collect this data, you can gain free access to the AAPPR benchmarking portal. The benchmarking portal includes days to fill and compensation calculators and give you the ability to compare a range of data, including organizational profiles, search information, recruiter profile data and recruiter compensation figures.
Utilizing the Reporting
Access to these customized reports is critical to making informed and strategic decisions around workforce planning, growth management, and target productivity levels. The ability to make these strategic decisions goes a long way towards implementing informed recruitment strategies that can ultimately help you better understand the market and fill searches more quickly.
To see how your organization stacks up and gain access to more valuable industry data, you can purchase the complete 2023 Benchmarking report at https://aappr.org/research/benchmarking/.
Today’s physician and provider recruitment landscape has never been more filled with talent supply constraints, economic influencers and pressures, provider burnout, and the growing demand for our industry to be more agile and poised for success.
Just like you, I remain dedicated to advancing our mission-critical work and fueling the acceleration of transformation for our industry; but, as with each decision we make on a daily basis, we’re rooted in the guidance of data (along with some healthy intuition we’ve built over our experiences throughout the years)! Luckily, we have a trusted compass in our toolkit to help keep us on the right path – the AAPPR Benchmark Report. The 2023 survey report represents more than 150 organizations that participated in the extensive annual research study, representing more than 19,000 searches.
As a leader, I am accountable for ensuring our recruitment processes enable efficiency, high performance, and outstanding service excellence. Although a difficult journey, the benchmark report provides insightful aggregate data reported by leaders in our field to allow comparisons of our key performance indicators (KPIs) with those experienced across similar organizational types and sizes. From interview-to-hire ratios to time-to-fill, these data points play a contributing role in determining where a team’s performance gaps are and help to innovate timely solutions designed to create a competitive advantage for top talent.
AAPPR’s Benchmarking Report isn’t just about insightful numbers. It demonstrates the complex interconnectivity between strategic workforce development, timely matchmaking, and the contributions to an organization’s revenue stream. While at the same time, the report begs each of our perspectives for how best to impact the health care industry’s ability to drive care change and how to ensure a great cultural add to an organization as a whole. The report compels and empowers us to better understand the latest trends, identify creative solutions, and implement unique/demonstrated strategies that help move the population of available physicians and advanced practice providers from one practice to another across the United States.
Like a magnetized needle in a compass, the report points to best industry practices. And along that path are the experiences and the stories of the journey of this high-touch profession. While the path to our ultimate destination is never perfect, our ability to calibrate keeps us close to the right path we know will get us faster to our destination.
In today’s hustle and bustle, it’s easy to get distracted and off the path of best practices. Be sure to always calibrate your performance — check out the latest data and see how far on course you really are!
As the national physician shortage continues, demand for physician and provider talent is only expected to grow, giving physicians who are unsatisfied with their working conditions the opportunity to find a similar role with a competing organization.
In fact, AAPPR’s 2022 report on increased provider turnover shows one in three physicians and nearly one in two advanced practice providers (APPs) have departed their employer for a similar position elsewhere. Despite this trend, more than 75% of survey respondents say their organization does not have a formal retention program in place.
With ongoing physician shortages, a recruitment strategy isn’t enough to keep your organization staffed, and it’s critical that your workforce planning strategy prioritizes retaining the high-quality talent you already have. To ensure retention remains a top priority and minimize turnover, we recommend implementing a formal retention program. Here are five things to consider when launching your formal retention program:
Once your organization’s retention program is developed and in place, it’s important to measure its effectiveness and analyze if there is any room for improvement. One way you can measure this is by comparing your previous turnover rate to your present one. Surveying physicians on factors that often drive turnover, including burnout, level of work-life balance and overall job satisfaction, can also help guide the program and identify opportunities for improvement.
As competition for clinical talent continues to dramatically rise, investing in a formal retention program will bring your organization long-term benefits including reduced turnover and increased retention of top talent, while creating a work environment that demonstrates you are an employer of choice.
AAPPR will launch a new course geared towards new recruitment professionals in a few weeks. If you are new to the provider recruitment world, welcome! You have taken the absolute best first step by joining AAPPR to further your professional growth and development. Below are several tips for new and seasoned recruitment professionals. After all, a seasoned recruiter knows our landscape is ever-changing, so our recruitment tactics must also continuously evolve.
Five Atypical Recruitment Tactics
We’re all familiar with the adage, “Speak less, listen more.” While it may appear as a fundamental principle, it is sometimes underestimated. After all, as recruiters, we thrive on conversations! After all, we’re recruiters- we love to chat! We are in this position for a reason: to sell our organization. Listening more actually helps us better connect with and understand our candidates better. Listening more allows us time to craft our responses while we navigate the conversation eloquently.
Know what you’re up against. Setting expectations within your organization is key. Research the competing offers, know how many physicians are available for the specialty needed, and provide average days to fill data. Every organization’s recruitment processes look different, and if you’re recruiting a resident/fellow, this may be their first time interviewing. Setting expectations for the candidate is also critical so they can be prepared for the next steps, and your department can show how organized and efficient it is.
Understanding your candidate’s motivators relates to my initial tip of active listening. It’s a crucial aspect, which is why I prioritize it by making it one of my first questions during our conversation. Understanding what is important to the candidate professionally and personally should be the hub of the conversation. Knowing their interests allows you to connect and sell your community, the position, and the health system.
Quality is better than quantity. Be selective as to who you invite in for a site visit. Our 2022 AAPPR Benchmarking Report shows that 85% of provider recruiters are female, so you will appreciate my following sentiment. While shopping, you should only buy the item if it will bring you joy. Only host candidates you believe will be an excellent fit for the practice and community. Once that candidate is identified, go all out on customizing the visit based on their interests and motivators.
Once the site visit is complete, you are exhausted, and let’s face it, you’ve been away from your computer all day, and the emails have added up. Be sure to close the loop and extend an offer in a timely fashion. Furthermore, after the recruited provider has signed the contract and is preparing to relocate, maintain ongoing communication to keep them informed about the health system and the community. This commitment to communication contributes to successful physician retention. Physician retention is important, and it starts once they execute their contract.
Happy Recruiting!
With my AAPPR Board Presidency term recently ending, along with receiving a promotion into a larger leadership role at work, the concept of good leadership has been on my mind. We are all leaders in what we do to some extent – whether it’s leading cross functional teams or leading our book of work. We have a direct impact on the revenue and success of our organizations. And we seek a seat at the table to influence executives and business leaders because we are the experts in our space. In my first official manager role, I had no idea what I was doing and learned through some tough feedback that there is always opportunity for growth. Managers drive employees, while employees follow leaders. Creating a following can start at any role level.
Here are some key lessons that I’ve learned along the way…
1. A leader is only as good as the people they surround themselves with: I heard a leader say this once and it stuck. I now use it all the time with my teams. Don’t surround yourself with just “yes people.” Make a point to build a team or network of people who challenge you to think differently. Who bring different perspectives and experiences to the table. Who seek to understand, not just do. And empower your teams to be the leaders and owners of their work. A leader’s success is not theirs alone. It belongs to their team, and it is the leader’s job to empower and lift their team to do their best work.
2. Don’t be afraid to fail: The greatest opportunity we have to grow is in our most challenging moments. Be open to feedback. It’s OK to fail, but fail fast and then fix it. Nothing is ever perfect from the start, but it is in failure that we often learn how to thrive.
3. Cast a big shadow: Be purposeful in your interactions and think about how they impact others. Hold yourself to the same standards that you do others and model the behavior that you want to see in others. Good leaders are human – they are accessible and relatable, and they care about interactions at every level.
4. Leadership can be the loneliest place:As leaders we are responsible for making decisions that can have far-reaching consequences. At times, the toughest decisions we make are the ones that others cannot. We must learn how to separate the personal and emotional side of ourselves from our decision-making. Never is this truer than when you are in a position to make decisions that you know will impact the people you care about on your team.
5. When you put people first, they’ll give you their best: This is where authenticity – and even a little emotion – lives. Leading by fear only creates a team that underperforms. Have genuine concern for the well-being and development of your people – strive for meaningful relationships as you work towards a common goal. This is where you find human connection and aligned beliefs and behaviors.
In our often-unforgiving world of navigating executives and business partners while trying to meet hiring needs in a talent segment that’s facing extreme shortages – we lead strategy, we lead relationships, we lead impact. Leadership isn’t a time or point in your career. You don’t have to be in the executive suite to model leadership behavior or influence change. It’s not a title or a team that makes others value your input. It’s the mutual respect and credibility that you develop through your relationships and the demonstrated value that you bring to the table that makes you a strong leader.
It’s no secret the market for physician and provider talent is more competitive than ever. Data from our 2022 benchmarking report shows physician shortages in many specialties are expected to continue climbing for the foreseeable future, making employee retention, burnout management, and well-being more important than ever. If not addressed, burnout and poor well-being of physicians, providers, and entire system staff has the potential to impact the quality of clinical operations and patient care.
To keep retention, mitigating burnout, and encouraging well-being top of mind for recruiters, HR staff, and leadership, we believe these three things are critical:
When constantly putting out fires and working to solve employee deficits, it’s difficult to prioritize intentional and thoughtful retention, burnout, and well-being initiatives. That’s why we always recommend engraining retention practices into everyday operations. Tactics like regular touchpoints can help identify issues and potential stressors, such as a lack of support or nursing staff before they’re full-blown crises. It’s also important to take a proactive approach to change management and look to involve physicians and their feedback in the decision-making process whenever possible.
Also critical to mitigating burnout and improving wellbeing and retention, is positioning physician and provider leaders at the forefront of retention activities. Just as physicians must personalize care to each patient, leadership and management need to personalize retention strategies to various teams, people and roles. Not every approach works for every physician or every healthcare system. Rather, empowering physician leaders to build a culture focused on connection will help leadership develop a deeper understanding of their teams wants, needs and concerns. This insight is critical in developing specific and individual strategies to ensure wellbeing, alleviate burnout and drive retention.
New technologies are essential to improving operations, efficiencies and even patient care, but AAPPR research also found new technologies and processes are a common cause of burnout, especially among older physicians and providers. In fact, our 2021 report on physician satisfaction and burnout found that over 33 percent of physicians cited burnout as the primary factor for early retirement, while 20 percent attributed an increasingly difficult technology and administrative workload as causes for early retirement.
The involvement of physicians in the roll out or development of new technologies and processes can help to ensure the technology works in a way that complements physicians and their roles, ultimately reducing day-to-day stress rather than introducing new stressors.
All of these things sound relatively simple in theory, but limited bandwidth amongst physician leaders can make it difficult to implement clinical-driven retention strategies. We recommend a few best practices to make this process a bit easier including allowing physicians to lead by example to promote the benefits of a physician-led recruitment program and providing physicians the tools and recourses they need to lead their own team programs. The most important thing leaders can do to support retention efforts is “know thy physician”. As recruitment professionals, we have a critical role in serving as the liaison between physician and leadership and can help nurture these important relationships and promote retention strategies.
Overall, proactively involving physician leadership in retention activities has the power to improve retention rates in clinical support staff. By giving physician leaders the resources needed to develop and engage with their team members, these leaders are empowered to meet with teams outside of the work environment and improve retention rates by understanding team concerns and challenges, as well as soliciting feedback on their own individual management styles. More than anything, an organizational commitment to the principle of “no decisions about me without me” may bey the key to avoiding administrative decision-making that doesn’t adequately account for physician needs.
Have you implemented any physician-led retention efforts at your organization? Share with us on social!
Who loves a good strategic planning session? I do! The thought of heading into the war room filled with flip charts, sharpies, endless amounts of sticky notes, and everyone’s oversized coffee cup to keep them hopped up on caffeine is exciting. Your creative juices flowing, sharpening the pencil, feverishly writing down your thoughts and then feverishly scribbling it out as you come up with a better way to phrase it. All in the pursuit of creating an inspiring mission, vision, values, and action plan to carry them out.
So, what exactly is strategic planning, and how can it help you and your organization achieve your goals? According to Harvard Business School Strategic planning is defined as the ongoing organizational process of using available knowledge to document a business’s intended direction. This process is used to prioritize efforts, effectively allocate resources, align shareholders and employees on the organization’s goals, and ensure those goals are backed by data and sound reasoning.
My fellow board members and I recently completed a strategic planning session to create a new mission, vision, and values (MVV) statement for AAPPR. These statements were shared in June’s Pulse Newsletter. If you missed it don’t worry, we are planning for a bigger launch of the landscape plan and the MVV later this year.
What I loved about the planning session, and many follow-up discussions, was how everyone really participated in the process. We all strived to come up with a well-written strategic plan that will play a pivotal role in the growth and success of AAPPR. With the rapidly changing landscape and challenges in provider recruitment the board worked hard to provide clear goals and objectives for the organization. The new strategic imperatives will help position AAPPR as an industry expert, strengthen the value of membership, champion a diverse, equitable and inclusive physician and provider workforce, and diversify and grow the membership and customer base.
I want to express my deep admiration and appreciation for my fellow board members for their time and dedication in planning and paving the future of AAPPR.
Thank you,
Doug Lewis
As we enter our traditional busy summer season for Physician Recruitment, it is essential to prioritize balance while pushing ourselves and our teams to meet the high demands of our recruitment goals. Work-life balance is not just noise; it has become fundamental to achieving optimal results and fostering high-level productivity. Finding balance helps recruitment professionals avoid a reduction in productivity while remaining resilient to continue to meet the pace of our industry. Here are some ways to balance goals, avoid burnout, and build resiliency.
Setting expectations with leadership and providing information to hiring leaders and senior leadership regarding the busy summer season is vital. Leaders need to be reminded of the basics and current market conditions. Summer is a hot time for recruitment because practicing physicians are renewing their current contracts. While prospective 2024 candidates are eager to begin their job search. Leaders must understand that the team must act quickly and clearly to accept/reject candidates. It’s a seller’s market for Physician recruits, and they know it. Having the hiring goals finalized to be prepared to answer all questions and explaining any nuances related to the particulars of the position will be critical as there is little time to gather responses from the team and present them to candidates before they move to the next job for consideration.
Monitor processes to look for improvement, reviewing workflows to ensure targets are being met and how they could be addressed if there are any lags. Often during the summer vacation, schedules can impede and extend the timeframes, ensuring measures are taken to keep candidates flowing through the process quickly. Take steps to keep the momentum going even if the regular business partners are not available.
Levering Tech for productivity, in this error of Physician Recruitment, we have many advantages with full utilization of our tools. We cannot only use technology to schedule emails and text messages to be sent out when we are away from our desks but also to leverage the best practices for our specific situations. Most of us have access to one or more tools for advertising and marketing resources, for example, PracticeLink, Doximity, PracticeMatch, etc. These tools provide us with valuable advantages when it comes to accessing our recruitment data. By utilizing these tools beyond their basic functions of job posting and sending out job-related emails, we can unlock additional benefits. Leverage these tools to research what is working (email outreach, postings, etc.) provide insight to the interest of your advertisements, we can target competitors, find out how many graduates are available in our markets, etc.
Using established relationships, check in with past recruits for feedback about working at the organization. Of course, our goal is to get new leads, but we can also leverage this conversation to get ideas about how working is different (for better or worse) than expected. Holding talks with past recruits also serves as a retention checkpoint for the organization to get a feel of the current mindset of the candidate. Remember, you established the original trust with the candidate and brought them into the company, and that is all about relationship, communication, and trust.
Taking time to pause, remote work has its advantages, but it also has our teams sitting longer, working longer without a pause for mental refreshment. I encourage my team to block time in their daily schedules to step away from their work area and go into another room, breath, stroll around the block, send a gratitude text/email to a friend or co-worker, etc. The thought is to engage other parts of our brains and build flexibility into the workday to sustain our hope of positive outcomes.
We must focus on balance and resiliency to maintain our talents within this industry, as many of us suffer as we try to meet the high demands and remain high-functioning people. Turnover within Physician Recruitment is higher than ever. Retaining our talent in the industry is crucial for us to remain sustainable; we must pause and reset physically and mentally to stay effective.
Facing unusually long wait times for credentialing and medical licenses in many states, physicians and advanced practice providers say it’s preventing them from making a living – and impeding patients from getting the care they need.
Physician and provider recruiters are well aware of the state medical licensing delays. For years, recruitment professionals have managed the challenges that prolonged state licensure delays have on new providers who are eagerly waiting to join an organization practice. In some cases, the unpredictable licensure timelines and unforeseen delays have resulted in organizations adjusting provider start dates multiple times. In turn, this can mean delaying appointments for patients who may have already been waiting to see a provider for quite some time.
The COVID-19 pandemic contributed to the backlog, adding to the physician shortage and other factors hampering healthcare recruiting – but does it affect patient care? Deborah Baker, Director of Legal and Regulatory Policy for the American Psychological Association,¹ believes it does. “If we don’t have efficient, consistent processing of these licensing applications, it’s just snowballing the overwhelming need,” said Baker. “This is more than just an administrative issue, this really is a public health issue.”
The length of time it takes to get a license in each state varies. Each state has its own licensing process, and although licensing requirements are very similar across the country, most states require physicians to be separately licensed in every state in which they practice. In addition to state-based licensure requirements, physicians performing services for multiple hospitals (like radiologists reading digital films via teleradiology) must be separately credentialed and privileged at each hospital.
The cause of the delays can vary, but state budgets and lack of staffing are common reasons. The processing speed can also vary by state and profession. Most states license numerous other professions and occupations, not just those in healthcare. Some states have independent medical boards that approve licenses, while others house their boards within a larger agency. Many states also use manual processing systems, requiring applicants to send forms, transcripts, and other records via fax or mail.
Physicians and providers need to be aware of the time it takes to get a license or risk being blindsided by licensure delays. Physicians are typically told it will take about sixty days, but in some states, the process can take six months or more. Prolonged delays have caused some physicians to pivot career plans or work in limbo in a location where they are licensed and credentialed until they can get a license to work in another state, practice, or hospital. All the while, patients await delivery of care.
Delayed licensing is not a new problem, either. In 2009, the California Medical Association2 filed a suit claiming that furloughs instituted by the state unacceptably slowed the state medical board’s processing of applicants for physician licenses. The state medical board had a backlog of applications well before California began its furlough program. In 2020, the healthcare system was already experiencing a physician shortage, impacting access to care, when the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem. It also revealed how ill-prepared state licensure and hospital credentialing procedures are when a crisis requires hiring more physicians to meet patient-care needs.
At the onset of the public health crisis, every licensing agency was forced to adapt. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) and almost every state in the country temporarily waived the requirement that physicians be licensed in the state where their patients are located.3 Many states waived or modified licensure requirements and renewal policies to ensure physicians with out-of-state licenses could practice in states with increased in-hospital demands. Did it help? NYC Health + Hospitals (at the epicenter of the crisis in the U.S.) was able to staff up to meet urgent needs during the pandemic,4 and there are numerous other examples.
The Interstate Medical Licensing Compact (IMLC)5 also provided much-needed flexibility to states that needed to license physicians to treat more patients quickly. The IMLC, an agreement between state boards of allopathic and osteopathic medicine, allows board-certified physicians in one of the member states to obtain expedited licensure in other member states. The Compact requires just one application for a physician to be licensed in multiple states where they intend to practice, which helps licensure to be completed faster and in fewer steps.
While the pandemic highlighted the need and the efficiency of the IMLC, it also changed how physicians used the compact. According to research from the American Academy of Dermatology Association,6 before 2020, a higher percentage of physicians used it for localized practice, with about 40% of physicians applying for licenses in a nearby state and an average of 1.6 licenses issued per application. However, after the pandemic began, locum tenens and telemedicine needs increased to account for 66% of applications.
What if physicians who get licenses in multiple states could also use the IMLC to maintain them? According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association,7 one of the biggest issues the IMLC hears from physicians is the difficulty in having multiple licenses with different renewal periods and continuing education requirements. In response, the IMLC is working to create a single source for physicians to log in to view all their licenses and track and control that information.
Virtual medical visits also dramatically increased during the pandemic. To prevent exposure to physicians and patients yet still serve patients, in-person visits were conducted by video. To address the critical need, some states also extended out-of-state licensing requirements for telehealth during the COVID crisis. For some specialties, telehealth has become a vital tool for physicians and patients alike, increasing and expanding access to care in communities. Under the revised licensure requirements, providers can deliver telehealth services across state lines, depending on rules set by state and federal policies. Interstate Compacts further simplify cross-state telehealth for specialists in participating states, according to the Federation of State Medical Licensing.8
Credentialing bottlenecks with organizations and payors can also affect patient care. Any physician opening a new practice, working across state lines, changing practice states, or joining a new hospital or healthcare organization must undergo the credentialing process within that practice or organization – regardless of how long they’ve been working as a qualified healthcare professional. The process requires extensive paperwork and multiple steps, and every state has slightly different requirements for obtaining credentials. Some states estimate traditional credentialing to be 30 to 60 days, while others warn credentialing can take anywhere from 90 to 150 days. Every day can impact a physician or provider’s ability to practice medicine legally, and patient care and access are hindered. The paperwork-filled processes can also increase stress on providers, drain physician enthusiasm, and affect their work-life balance.
Inefficient provider credentialing processes and mistakes can also increase costs. For many hospitals and health systems, 2022 was the most financially difficult year since the start of the pandemic. Research points to administrative waste as a critical driver of excess health spending. According to research from HealthAffairs,9 administrative spending accounts for 15 to 30 percent of healthcare spending, and at least half of that spending is wasteful due to a lack of standardization and coordination of administrative policies and procedures.
There’s no arguing that credentialing is a labor-intensive process. However, the industry is becoming more patient-centric, making it all the more important for physicians and providers to stay up to date with their credentials. That’s why many healthcare industry pundits believe automating the credentialing process can create efficiencies and substantially streamline the process. According to Physician and Practice,10 by importing information directly from primary sources like state licensing boards, a physician profile can be created and extended among health system locations. A physician could verify pre-filled data, supply any missing information, and spend 15-20 minutes versus three or four hours completing a lengthy document. Physicians also save the aggravation of refiling the same paperwork every time they move to a new state, a new hospital, or another practice. Automating and centralizing credentialing could also help healthcare organizations enhance provider satisfaction (think retention) and ultimately help deliver better patient care.
Healthcare staffing complications, exacerbated by the pandemic, put a spotlight on barriers that physician licensure and credentialing procedures have created for the delivery of healthcare. Understanding what the healthcare workforce needs to achieve desired patient outcomes and advocating for faster and easier licensing and credentialing processes is essential to patient care.
1. Building on the IMLC and expanding the Compact to all 50 states and four territories is an important step. It currently includes 37 states, the District of Columbia, and the Territory of Guam.
2. Having multiple licenses with different renewal periods and continuing education requirements is one of physicians’ biggest issues.
3. The proposed national physician license would strengthen our ability to respond to future crises, better allocate medical personnel to areas of need, and reduce administrative costs.
4. Automating the credentialing process can create efficiencies and substantially streamline the process.
5. Providing easier and faster credentialing can allow organizations to offer a unique benefit to the candidates with whom they work, build trust among patients, and deliver patient-focused care.
¹‘A real crisis’: License backlogs in some states are preventing health care workers from seeing patients https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/-real-crisis-license-backlogs-states-prevent-health-care-workers-seein-rcna14740
²Fierce Healthcare: California Medical Association sues state over doctor licensing delays
https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/healthcare/california-medical-association-sues-state-over-doctor-licensing-delays
³Bipartisan Policy Center: What Eliminating Barriers to Interstate Telehealth Taught Us During the Pandemic
https://bipartisanpolicy.org/report/what-eliminating-barriers-to-interstate-telehealth-taught-us-during-the-pandemic
4JAMA Network | JAMA Internal Medicine: Modernize Medical Licensing, and Credentialing, Too—Lessons From the COVID-19 Pandemic, Donnie L. Bell, MD; Mitchell H. Katz, MD https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2775344
5 Interstate Medical Licensure Compact Commission, https://www.imlcc.org/³U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources: Telehealth licensing requirements and interstate compacts
https://telehealth.hhs.gov/providers/policy-changes-during-the-covid-19-public-health-emergency/telehealth-licensing-requirements-and-interstate-compacts/
6,7American Academy of Dermatology Association (AAD), EXTENDING MEDICINE’S REACH: DermWorld takes a look at the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, by Andrea Niermeier
https://www.aad.org/dw/monthly/2023/january/feature-extending-medicines-reach
8Federation of State Medical Licensing: U.S. States and Territories Modifying Requirements for Telehealth in Response to COVID-19
https://www.fsmb.org/siteassets/advocacy/pdf/states-waiving-licensure-requirements-for-telehealth-in-response-to-covid-19.pdf
9HealthAffairs Research Brief: The Role Of Administrative Waste In Excess US Health Spending
https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hpb20220909.830296/
10Physician and Practice: Streamlining credentialing to boost provider satisfaction, patient access by Grant Fields
https://www.physicianspractice.com/view/streamline-credentialing-to-boost-provider-satisfaction-and-patient-access
Chief of Neurology: “Well, with all due respect, I’m not confident that you will fill this search for me”
Physician Recruiter: “If in six months I’m unable to find well-qualified candidates for you to consider, I promise not to bother you again”
And that’s how my first meeting as the new Physician Recruiter ended with Dr. Karoubi, my first client. His neurology position had gone unfilled for two years and he’d never worked with a specialized recruitment professional before. Within 90 days, I presented three excellent candidates to him: he hired one, created a new position for another, and eliminated a multi-million dollar contract with a specialty group. With that, Dr. Karoubi became my first Ally!
Transforming my health care system by introducing and establishing a physician recruitment operation has been quite the journey. Having this Ally became a game changer since physician recruiters were non-existent – and not welcomed – in the beginning. While I made the ‘rounds’ championing the value of the physician recruiter, Dr. Karoubi shared his experience – and results – with fellow department heads and executive leaders. Pretty soon, I had a growing network of allies that championed me and the physician/provider recruiter role. This allowed me to focus exclusively on sourcing for top talent and providing a concierge-like experience to my clients while my Allies cleared pathways and silenced the naysayers.
Now, 14 years since that first meeting, our operation has grown from the original team of six to more than 100 projected physician/provider recruiter hires by the end of 2023. What I learned from Dr. Karoubi, and others that followed, is I did not bear this change management burden alone! I credit this network of Allies with making the physician/provider recruiter role a permanent component of our health care system. There are two simple ways I keep those Allies working for me:
Engagement – Whether I’m working on a search or just ‘checking in’, I keep in touch with my allies. An email to remind them I’m one text or IM away to deliver solutions for them, a visit to their department just to say ‘hi’ or simply connect. This strengthens our partnership and further solidifies me as the provider recruitment subject matter expert.
Enlightenment – No, not in a TedTalk kind of way. I send the latest on what’s trending in the provider market and our industry for Ally-awareness – AAPPR Benchmark Studies and White Papers, Becker’s Hospital Review, Modern Healthcare, etc. This keeps us connected even when I’m not working a search for them.
Over the years, I’ve learned to lean on my allies as key strategic partners that champion our profession, at the most critical stages of this transformational journey. I challenge you to do the same by keeping your alliances alive!
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