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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.
Recruitment is a fast-paced industry. Especially healthcare recruitment where there is a shortage in supply of candidates while the demand is extremely high. Healthcare recruiters often have no choice but to answer that physician candidate after 6pm or on a Saturday when the candidate is finally free from patient care. Never mind recruiters have a family of their own and well deserved precious personal time to enjoy.
This is why it is so important for all of us to work on Self-Care.
Remember, self-care is not selfish; it’s essential for your long-term well-being and success as a recruiter. By prioritizing your physical and mental health, you’ll be better equipped to handle the demands of your job and achieve greater job satisfaction.
Every person has a different approach to listening, learning, and working. Having different thought processes, different backgrounds, and different ways of communicating is essential in the workplace. When we talk about diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, many people immediately think about diversity in race, age, or gender. Today, I would like to talk about diversity in thought and information processing and how to make sure we are inclusive to everyone.
For the first 17 years of my life, I did not know that I had ADHD. I knew that I was not like all my classmates and teammates and that I processed information differently. However, I thought it was my fault and that I just needed to try harder. At the time, people were not aware of how ADHD can present in various ways, so it was assumed that I did not have it. After receiving my diagnosis, I panicked and thought my dreams might be unreachable because of it. Over the next few months, I learned more about how people receive and process information, as well as how these differences can lead to some amazing successes in life. There are amazing people who have had success and are navigating the world with ADHD, such as Simone Biles, Albert Einstein, Bill Gates, Michael Jordan, and more.
There are barriers to achieving this success and actions we take each day can make it easier for people to overcome those barriers. It is important to remember that when you are communicating with others, you may be giving them the same message, but it may need to be delivered differently. Clear and personalized communication benefits everyone, especially those who may be neurodiverse.
Some strategies to clarify your communication and help accommodate the neurodiverse population include:
1. Reflect on the appropriate method of communication. There are multiple methods of communication, and while a text message might be great for one person, a meeting might be better for another. People feel supported and heard if you ask what their preferred method of communication is.
2. Identify your purpose or call to action. With this communication, what are you trying to accomplish? Is it informative or is there a task that needs to be completed? Clearly identifying the call to action or purpose and highlighting that early in the communication can help people know what to keep in mind when reviewing the information.
3. Provide written deadlines and expectations. Even if you initially have a phone conversation with someone, following up with written deadlines, expectations, and instructions can help ensure that everyone is working towards the same goal and timeline.
4. Reduce stigma. Many people with ADHD struggle with whether they should disclose their diagnosis in the workplace out of fear it could lead to stigma and discrimination. You can work to promote a sense of inclusivity and openness within your workplace.
It is essential as working professionals, but also as those in healthcare and recruitment, that we increase our inclusivity and promote diversity in thought.
In the busy summer season for Physician Recruitment, it’s crucial to find a balance between productivity and well-being. Work-life balance is not just a trendy term; it’s essential for maintaining high performance and preventing burnout in this fast-paced industry. Here are some effective strategies for maintaining balance, boosting productivity, and promoting resilience during this important time:
First, make sure to discuss the expectations with leadership about the summer recruitment season. Keep senior management updated on market conditions and the need to promptly respond to candidate inquiries. Emphasize the importance of setting clear hiring goals to make decision-making processes more efficient and ensure timely engagement with candidates.
Review your recruitment workflows regularly to identify any bottlenecks and inefficiencies. It’s important to note that summer vacations can disrupt timelines, so it’s a good idea to implement strategies to maintain momentum during this time. Consider utilizing analytics from recruitment platforms such as PracticeLink and Doximity to optimize your job postings and outreach efforts. These tools can provide valuable insights into candidate preferences and market trends, giving you a competitive edge in recruitment.
Remember to fully embrace technology tools to increase productivity and streamline recruitment processes. Automated scheduling tools for emails and texts enable seamless communication, even when team members are unavailable. Platforms like PracticeMatch provide comprehensive data analytics to refine recruitment strategies and effectively target specific candidate demographics.
Maintain ongoing communication with past recruits to gather feedback on their experience and insights into workplace dynamics. Use these conversations to assess retention factors and identify areas for improvement. Building strong relationships fosters trust and loyalty, enhancing the organization’s reputation and attractiveness to prospective candidates.
Encourage team members to prioritize mental health by scheduling regular breaks and engaging in activities that promote relaxation and rejuvenation. Incorporate mindfulness practices into daily routines to alleviate stress and maintain focus. A refreshed mind contributes to sharper decision-making and sustained productivity throughout the recruitment process.
It’s crucial to acknowledge the significance of balance and resilience in retaining talent within the competitive physician recruitment industry. Organizations can reduce turnover rates and ensure long-term success by giving priority to employee well-being and operational efficiency. Investing in professional development and creating supportive work environments enhances employee engagement and organizational resilience.
As we dive into the summer recruitment season, it’s important to approach it with a good balance of productivity and well-being. To make the most of this season, recruitment professionals can focus on open communication with leadership, streamlining processes, making the most of technology, nurturing relationships, prioritizing mental well-being, and building long-term resilience. These strategies will help us achieve our goals while also taking care of ourselves.
Diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) play an important role in healthcare providers’ ability to deliver care that meets their communities’ needs. Building a diverse healthcare system starts with the provider recruitment professionals, their strategies and their processes. With DE&I embedded in workforce strategies, recruitment professionals can help foster more inclusive, representative hiring practices and ultimately, clinical staffs that are more reflective of the communities they serve.
While the ever-changing recruitment landscape requires continuously evolving tactics, these four practices act as a crucial foundation for sourcing, screening and hiring diverse candidates into the workplace.
Building a diverse healthcare system isn’t possible without developing diverse and inclusive sourcing and screening strategies. First, it’s important to evaluate your current recruitment strategies, such as where positions are posted and how positions are being promoted, to understand what’s working well and which methods can be improved. By implementing a diverse and inclusive mix of sourcing channels and an equitable screening process, you’ll be able to reach a wider variety of backgrounds and experiences, adding diversity to the candidates you’re interviewing as well as a broader set of skills and knowledge.
Active listening is a crucial aspect of the recruitment process. One of the first questions you should ask during the conversation should be about the candidate’s motivators, their interests and what is important to them – both professionally and personally. The answers to these questions will allow you to better understand your candidate and how they fit into your community and the organization. It will also help recognize potential barriers as well as any implicit and unconscious bias types. It’s important to hire individuals that recognize the significance of DE&I and ones that will prioritize these practices within their workplace.
Part of leadership’s role is to coach internal hiring authorities and recruitment professionals on inclusion and diversity policies within the healthcare industry. However, it’s also important for provider recruitment professionals to put in time outside of the workplace to stay up to date on DE&I industry standards and best practices through opportunities like conferences, memberships and certifications.
Professional certifications can give recruitment professionals added credibility within their organizations and the expertise to create more effective strategies. Certifications typically represent a higher level of expertise and require meeting specific standards, often set by professional associations (such as AAPPR). Typically, certifications require continuing education to maintain the certification and require those who hold the certification to periodically renew it.
In April 2022, AAPPR launched the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Micro Certification Course, specifically to help recruitment professionals advance their DE&I strategies. This advanced certification for those already holding a current CPRP certification provides recruiters with tools they need to create a more diverse and inclusive environment within their respective organizations.
Recruitment professionals have the opportunity to help shape the future of healthcare and advance diversity and inclusion within our community. With a national physician shortage continuing to create challenges in recruitment, it’s crucial to invest in building a diverse healthcare system, and these four approaches are a great first step in doing so.
If you’re an AAPPR member, our organization offers various resources to support your recruitment strategies, and if you’re not an AAPPR member, you can become one today by visiting https://aappr.org/join-now/.
AAPPR’s annual conference, Advancing Connections, took place March 24-27 in Virginia Beach and brought together more than 1,000 recruitment professionals, sponsors and exhibitors to discuss important topics in physician and provider recruitment. The conference included educational keynote presentations, breakout sessions and roundtable discussions from healthcare leaders and featured discussions on various trending topics including diversity, equity and inclusion, artificial intelligence and the changing demands of physicians. Here are three key takeaways from this year’s conference:
DE&I needs to be embedded into recruitment strategies and every action your organization takes. The people hired into physician roles are crucial to the overall health of our communities. If a physician has an implicit bias toward patients, this implicit bias becomes the foundation of the organization and ultimately affects the care that is being delivered. We must build organizations where inequality is neither allowed nor tolerated, and that starts with the recruiters. Every patient – no matter their race or gender – needs to be taken seriously and provided with equal care.
The rise of AI is inevitable and should not be feared, but it is important to be aware of how it’s affecting the future of recruitment. There are ways to use AI to make recruitment strategies more efficient; however, the human elements of the profession, such as effective communication, empathy and intuition, cannot and should not be replaced. Although AI can be used to help streamline the hiring process through candidate matching, chatbots and automated scheduling, recruitment professionals need to be conscious of its potential negative impact on DE&I. AI is only as good as the data it receives, and it will require careful monitoring to make sure there is fairness in its outcomes. Because of this, we must be responsible in how we pursue and implement AI.
Despite the many generational differences in physician and provider priorities, there are a few common denominators: work-life balance, paid time off, location and compensation. Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the desires, wants and needs of physicians have shifted significantly. The five-day work week is no longer the norm – many are seeking hybrid work arrangements and ways to integrate their personal life with their work life. As the national physician shortage continues, it’s important to address these demands through the recruitment process. The recruiter’s role is to better understand each individual, their desires and what incentives they gravitate toward. Meeting these demands is where the competitive advantage lies and how you add to your culture and attract talent best suited to your organization.
Save the date for next year’s conference in Phoenix, Arizona! Pre-conference workshops will take place March 22-23, 2025, followed by the full conference on March 23-25, 2025.
In the heart of healthcare, where every recruitment decision can touch countless lives, lies an incredible opportunity—not just for professional growth, but for genuine connection and mutual support. It’s in this spirit that I want to talk about our journey at AAPPR and how we’re not just navigating this path, but thriving on it, together.
AAPPR’s latest strategic plan isn’t just a blueprint for the future; it’s a testament to our collective resolve to elevate our profession. It’s about recognizing the power of community and the undeniable impact we can have when we come together. Whether you’re stepping into the world of healthcare recruitment, or you’ve been guiding its evolution for years, there’s something deeply empowering about knowing your part of a community that genuinely cares about your growth and success.
So, how do we keep this community thriving, you ask? Well, it’s all about coming together, both in person and virtually, to connect with fellow AAPPR members. These events are our chance to swap stories, celebrate wins, and dive into the nitty-gritty of what’s working (and what’s not). It’s like a big brainstorming session, packed with fresh ideas, innovations, and a whole lot of inspiration to fuel your journey forward.
Our online community, AAPPR Chat, is like stepping into a lively coffee shop where conversations are brewing around every corner, ready to spark new ideas and insights. And if you’re looking for a more intimate setting, our regional Shared Interest Groups (SIGs) are like cozy nooks where you can dive deep into the intricacies of our field with like-minded peers.
Our virtual roundtables are where the heart of our community beats the loudest, bringing to the forefront the pressing issues we face and the collective wisdom we hold. And for anyone seeking a guiding light or looking to be one for others, our Mentor Match program embodies the essence of paying it forward.
This is more than just a strategic plan. It’s a reflection of our shared vision to not just advance in our careers but to do so with a sense of belonging, understanding, and shared purpose. So, let’s take this journey together, with open hearts and minds, ready to support each other every step of the way. Because at AAPPR, we’re not just colleagues; we’re a community, committed to not just navigating but thriving in the ever-evolving landscape of healthcare recruitment.
The process of recruiting physicians and advanced practice providers is highly nuanced. Recruitment professionals must leverage broad skills to attract, hire, and retain clinical talent. Did you know this process has a formal name? At the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment, we refer to it as the Recruitment Continuum.
By definition, a continuum is a coherent whole characterized as a collection, sequence, or progression of values or elements varying by minute degrees. In other words, it represents a gradual progression from one point to another without distinct, sharp boundaries. Continuums are commonly used in various science, mathematics, and philosophy fields to understand and describe phenomena that vary across a spectrum rather than being discrete or categorical. In the field of physician and provider recruitment it represents the nuanced recruitment process that flows seamlessly from one phase to another.
For recruitment professionals, understanding and using the continuum concept helps them in a process where there is a gradual transition from one phase to another. This means there are no clear breaks or gaps between the different points on the continuum; the process should be smooth and incremental.
The provider recruitment continuum begins with sourcing and ends with retention.
Source: identifying and/or building a provider prospect pool and creating awareness of/interest in practice opportunities.
Screen: the internal process of pre-qualifying candidates to meet organizational/provider expectations, which may include interviews and site visits.
Select, Offer, and Hire: identifying and selecting the best-fit candidate through the extension and closing of an offer.
Onboard: the continuance of the recruitment process to meet onboarding timelines and standards, ensuring successful entry and integration into practice and community.
Retain: data analysis, strategic alignment, and program implementation with the intent of promoting provider satisfaction, resulting in increased retention.
Through a continuum, candidates experience a seamless transition from one phase to another throughout the recruitment process, with no apparent breaks or gaps between the different stages. While recruitment professionals must leverage diverse skills to attract, hire, and retain clinical talent effectively, candidates must have an easy and smooth experience. By looking at the steps in the recruitment process as a continual progression, we can ensure that recruitment professionals can practice to the best of their ability and that candidates have a positive experience.
During such a challenging time for recruitment professionals, with ongoing physician shortages and increased provider turnover, it may be difficult to take a strategic approach to recruitment, rather than just doing whatever it takes to fill an opening. Recruitment may seem as simple as filling an open position, but when done right, it can be so much more and can actually contribute to an organization’s bottom line.
Physicians and providers are healthcare system’s number one source of revenue. They bring in the patients, who pay for high quality care and hopefully become loyal to their physician and regularly return to the system. Because of physician and provider’s direct relationship to an organization’s financial success, recruiting and retaining high-quality physicians is critical for sustained financial health.
However, recruitment is harder than ever based on limited healthcare spending, the ongoing physician and provider shortage and an increased competition for talent. So, how do you recruit strategically in this environment to ensure your efforts align with your organization’s larger strategic plan and ultimately support the bottom line?
The first step is to implement a strategic plan to source, recruit and retain mission-aligned and high-quality talent to ultimately save your organization time, money and resources. Here are some key considerations for developing your recruitment strategy:
To ensure your recruitment strategy is aligned with and working towards your organization’s larger business goals, it’s critical that you first identify and understand those goals. A great way to do this is to have recruitment professionals included in organization wide strategic planning efforts. If you understand the larger strategy, it will be clear where you fit in and how recruitment can support the larger vision.
Based on national averages for physician revenue, days to fill a physician vacancy and number of searches per year, reducing an organization’s average search by just six days can generate more than $4.3 million in additional revenue. That’s why it’s so important you find the right candidates the first time who are a good organizational fit with the potential for longevity. To do this, we recommend developing thorough candidate profiles. Beyond hard skills, what are the characteristics of someone who would thrive within the organization. This will help to ensure you’re attracting the right talent and mitigate the risk of having to re-fill the same role in 6 months.
In today’s recruitment world, there are so many different avenues to find talent. It’s important to understand where the candidates you described in your candidate profiles search for jobs. As part of your recruitment strategy, it’s important to ensure you’re on the right channels and using the right methods to reach your target candidates. What works for one specialty might not work for another, so optimizing channels and taking a robust approach to sourcing is critical.
The selection process can be overwhelming, especially when you are desperate to fill an opening. In cases like this, it’s more important than ever to have very clear criteria for a right fit candidate and that you’re sticking to it when making a decision. This will give you and other decision makers clear guidelines to follow and ensure you’re prioritizing filling the position with a good fit that will be more likely to stay at the organization for a long time, rather than just filling the position as soon as possible.
Current physicians are the most important asset to your organization. They are ambassadors of the organization and should be included in the recruitment process whenever possible. Current physicians can provide great insights into the priorities of potential candidates. As a recruiter, you can play an important role as the coach of a larger team during the sourcing, recruiting and interviewing process. Remember to involve other team members including physicians and ensure they are playing the right role (like talking to the candidate about company culture or allowing the candidate to shadow them for a day).
Developing and implementing a strategic recruitment plan is only the first step in tracking ROI. Data is essential to measure ROI and ultimately determine the effectiveness of your strategic recruitment program. However, to be able to determine whether your recruitment strategy is effective, you need to be intentional about the metrics you choose to track and ensure they are telling the right story.
Some important metrics to track to measure ROI of your recruitment program include:
Without taking an intentional and strategic approach to recruitment, there is no guarantee that your efforts are moving the most important needles at your organization or supporting the company’s bottom line. But it’s not enough to just develop and implement a strategy, you have to be intentional about the metrics you track and data your measure to be able to tell the story of your work and make the case for why strategic recruitment is essential.
The cost of provider turnover can amount to hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of dollars in lost revenue. Retaining top talent in a competitive provider recruitment market is more important than ever. Here are five strategies your organization can implement today.
A positive onboarding experience can be critical to a provider’s long-term relationship with an organization. Statistics show that providers make the decision to stay in the first 90 days of a job, so use it well. Onboarding goes beyond the HR paperwork and IT training, past the first week of employment, through the first year of employment. It ensures that a new provider integrates into the culture of an organization and community. Ensuring providers understand and connect with the company’s mission, vision, values, and colleagues can contribute to a sense of purpose and engagement and build loyalty. If your organization struggles with an onboarding process, AAPPR offers a Certificate course in Onboarding and Retention you can explore.
A huge driver of provider stress and burnout stems from a lack of support staff. Front desk representatives, RNs, and MAs help visits go smoothly for patients and providers. These support staff ensure a practice is well run, and when fully staffed, it can make a significant difference in the day-to-day satisfaction of a provider. In a 2022 survey conducted by AAPPR, adequate administrative support staff ranked number one in importance in retention strategies, followed closely by clinical teams to support call coverage.
A stay interview is a process conducted by employers to engage and retain their current providers. Unlike exit interviews, which are conducted when a provider leaves a company, stay interviews are carried out while providers are still working at the organization. A stay interview aims to gather feedback and insights from providers about their job satisfaction, career aspirations, and overall experience within the company. This information helps employers understand what motivates their providers, identify areas for improvement, and implement changes that can enhance provider engagement and reduce turnover. If stay interviews are new to your organization, AAPPR has a simple guide to help you get started.
Mentorship programs offer significant benefits to both the mentee and mentor. Provider mentees can work to develop skills through the guidance of a mentor. They can also generate insights into career paths and strategies for advancement. Most importantly, they can build a professional network through mentor/mentee connections. Provider mentors can polish their skills, gain a fresh perspective, and increase professional satisfaction by working with colleagues. These programs play a pivotal role in personal and professional development, creating a ripple effect that extends to individuals, organizations, and communities by fostering growth, learning, and collaboration.
Let’s face it: the last three years have been extremely hard on healthcare workers. Being recognized and thanked for your work feels good, but public recognition helps others know when team members are appreciated. Studies have shown that providers who are recognized for their work and their efforts are not only more likely to stay long-term but will also work harder and be more productive.
Provider retention is critical to maintaining a stable and productive workforce and ensuring quality care in the community your organization serves. Retention programs don’t need to be costly or complicated to be effective. To learn more about what drives turnover in the provider space, check out AAPPR’s white paper on Increased Provider Turnover and Inadequate Retention Programs.
Diversity in the healthcare workforce is not just an ethical goal but a strategic necessity that improves patient care and advances community health. Healthcare providers from diverse backgrounds are better equipped to identify and address disparities in healthcare outcomes, offering culturally sensitive care that meets the needs of all demographics. As gatekeepers of workforce composition, recruitment professionals play a crucial role in creating an inclusive healthcare environment that serves our communities.
Elevating Retention Through Inclusive Environments
For AAPPR members, the balance between recruiting and retaining talent is paramount. Creating an inclusive workplace is critical; without it, healthcare organizations may face a costly cycle of turnover. Fostering a welcoming atmosphere that celebrates diversity is vital to ensure new professionals feel valued and engaged.
2. Cultivating Leadership from Within
It is essential to provide clear and accessible paths for career advancement to all employees working in your organization. Members of AAPPR can play a crucial role in promoting a transparent promotion process during interviews, ensuring the development of workflows that emphasize the importance of avoiding biases and creating an inclusive environment for hiring the best clinicians for your organization. This process starts by confirming diversity awareness and goals with all parties involved in making decisions related to job offers. An organizational-wide posting system is an excellent tool to democratize information about career advancement opportunities.
3. Crafting a Diversity-Friendly Brand
It’s important to remember that how people perceive your healthcare organization can have a big impact on how successful you are at recruiting new staff. In addition to formal advertising, members of AAPPR should also think about how the reputation of their organization spreads through word-of-mouth. Establishing a reputation for genuinely supporting diversity can be a powerful way to attract diverse talent.
4. Expanding Networks for Diverse Talent Engagement
Networking plays a vital role in creating successful diversity recruitment and retention strategies. As AAPPR members, it is essential to build strong connections not only within the organization but also in the broader community. Do you have access to networks that can provide information about emerging talent among family members or those who have recently acquired new skills? These relationships are crucial for creating a diverse pool of candidates and should be a priority for AAPPR members who want to improve the diversity of their healthcare teams.
5. A Proactive Approach to Diversity
AAPPR members are uniquely positioned to advocate for proactive recruitment and retention strategies. They can achieve this by encouraging diverse workplaces, ensuring that advancement opportunities are visible and accessible, building strong networks, and enhancing their organization’s reputation. By doing so, AAPPR members can steer their organizations toward a future with a dynamic and inclusive workforce.
Diversity plays a crucial role in driving innovation, as it brings in a range of experiences and ideas, leading to improved problem-solving and medical breakthroughs. Recruitment professionals can promote fair hiring practices and implement intentional strategies that create a healthcare system reflective of the society it serves.
AAPPR has a strategic plan in place to educate recruiters on diversity best practices, equipping them to attract and retain a diverse workforce. Our members play a pivotal role in this mission by ensuring that the workforce reflects and embraces the patients in the communities they serve.
Through our strategic plan, AAPPR is leading by example, demonstrating that the commitment to diversity is more than just a strategic priority—it is a defining principle for the future of healthcare and recruiting the Clinical Provider workforce of tomorrow.
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