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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.
The high cost of turnover in health care and the ever-present provider shortage validates the importance of strengthening physician and provider retention strategies in every organization. A study by the University of Virginia Health System determined that physicians were more likely to leave their positions if they felt they were spending too much time in a particular area of their jobs. Stay interviews can be one way to review the right balance of patient care, administration, research, and teaching to make or break a physician/provider’s desire to stay with a specific organization.
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Over three months after the United States began restricting movement to flatten the curve of COVID-19, in-house physician recruitment teams are still innovating and adapting to a new form of recruitment and hiring. AAPPR recently queried of its members through both an online survey and personal interviews to hear directly from them on what had changed in their profession.
The data shows a tale of two roads diverging: those who stopped and those who kept recruiting. The impact of those two differing paths remains to be seen. AAPPR surveyed its members in June of 2020 and conducted qualitative interviews that dove deeper into members’ experiences. Interviews were done with members from large and small organizations and from coast to coast. In every member interaction today, AAPPR hears stories of adaptability and resilience. Some don’t wait to be redeployed; they become leaders and share their transferable expertise. Mentoring has grown, especially with or by those who have been furloughed. This has been a time to be reflective and invest in oneself. The stories our members have shared with us are truly inspiring.
As recruitment professionals, we are keenly aware of our organization’s brand and branding strategy, but have you given the same thought to your brand? What does your professional brand say about you?
Like your organization’s brand, your professional brand establishes who you are and what you value. Your professional brand can not only help you stand out in a competitive job market but can also distinguish you in the workplace.
In this guide, we will look at tips to help you build your professional brand across multiple channels and leverage that brand for maximum results.
In collaboration with our members and the feedback, resources, and insights they have shared through Member Chat, AAPPR has compiled the following suggested tips for virtual interviews.
Whatever your neurology recruitment need, you can maximize your chances of success by understanding the neurology recruiting landscape and adapting your practice opportunity to current market trends.
Studies point to an aging population and a limited candidate pool as the reasons for the neurology shortage. A 2013 study published by the AAN found, by looking at the number of neurologists, retirement probability, the number of new graduates, and the number of hours worked, that demand outstripped supply by 11%, and estimated that the demand would outstrip supply by 19% by 2025. Dall, Timothy M et al. “Supply and demand analysis of the current and future US neurology workforce.” Neurology vol. 81,5 (2013). However, this estimate may be a gross underestimate of the shortage because it doesn’t take into account more recent factors increasing the demand for neurology services and constraining supply, including:
1. increased sub-specialization,
2. the evolution of the inpatient/outpatient split practice,
3. the increase in the value candidates place on work-life balance, and
4. the high percentage of candidates requiring visa support.
For patients suffering from neurological problems, the treatment options have dramatically increased in recent years. This increase in therapeutic options has increased the patient demand for subspecialized neurology care, and is accompanied by a sharp increase in sub-specialization among neurologists. Based on the latest data from the American Academy of Neurology, 90% of residents report plans to pursue a fellowship following residency. Neurology residency training in 2017 Mahajan, Abhimanyu et al Neurology Jan 2019, 92 (2) 76-83. The AMA puts this number at 89%, and our own data also show that 88-90% of new graduates go on to do fellowships.
Accompanying this steep trend towards sub-specialization, neurology practices have tended to split inpatient from outpatient responsibilities. In many practices, neurohospitalists have taken the hospital call burden away from the outpatient neurologists. Neurohospitalists usually prefer working 7on/7 off, ideally in 10-12-hour shifts requiring no more than 12-15 patient encounters per day. Conversely, neurologists who are fellowship trained in an outpatient-focused sub-specialty generally prefer jobs that are purely outpatient which will allow them to focus 50% -80% or more on their subspecialty.
To replace a do-it-all neurologist, you may need to hire 2-3 neurologists to replace that one individual. If you do find a general neurologist who is willing and able to do it all, we advise you to enthusiastically incorporate that neurologist into your practice!
While modern healthcare encourages physicians to work as many hours as they will give, candidates often express a desire for work-life balance. Burnout is common, but neurologists who are unhappy with their work hours can easily find new employment with fewer hours. Neurologists seeking to juggle work and family life may seek part-time positions, further constraining supply in a fixed pool of neurologists.
According to our data, over 30% -40% of U.S. neurology trainees in recent years are foreign medical graduates. They have done their residencies in the US which makes them US Board Eligible (or board certified if they have already taken and passed the board exam) but will need some type of visa sponsorship (primarily J-1 or H-1B). These candidates often prefer jobs in locations which offer a community of individuals from similar ethnic and/or religious backgrounds.
1. Adapt your job to the candidate pool: Sub-specialization in neurology is now the rule, and general neurology is the exception. Encourage your administrators to figure out which neurology sub-specialties could be well-supported by your facility and your patient population. While the need for general neurology is often paramount, especially in smaller communities, half of a good neurologist’s time doing general neurology is better than nothing. Advertise for the sub-specialists you can legitimately support, and make 50% general neurology a part of the job. Making your job attractive to sub-specialists who will each do 50% general neurology may be a path to meeting your general neurology need; it will just take more than one hire to replace a retiring neurologist.
2. Use APPs to help meet your general neurology need: Some hospitals are training APPs to run a neurology access clinic (which may have 3-4 APPs supervised by a neurologist) in order to reduce patient wait times. Additionally, NPs and PAs can often relieve much of the burden of the general neurologist by doing pre-screening and follow-ups.
3. Get creative to adapt to candidate’s desires for fully inpatient or fully outpatient work: We have seen a smaller hospital team up with a slightly larger hospital nearby to hire a neurohospitalist who covered both hospitals. Hospitals that do not have the volume or budget to support two 7 on/7 off neurohospitalists may hire one neurohospitalist who works M-F, 9am-5pm.
4. Provide Visa Support: Since 30-40% of new graduates in any given year are foreign medical graduates, if you can provide an H-1B or J-1 visa waiver, you should.
5. Offer Work-Life Balance: While you may want a more-than-full-time neurologist to meet the demands of your practice, a .5% or .8% FTE is better than none! Practices that can proudly advertise part-time positions or limited working hours are at an advantage in this hiring market.
6. Keep Compensation Competitive: There is no room for wishful thinking when it comes to compensation for neurologists. Your most senior neurologists may never have made as much money as it will take to recruit a new neurologist. MGMA 2019 Median reported compensation for neurology (based on 2018 data) was up almost 7% to $323,190. Source: 2019 MGMA DataDive Provider Compensation, based on 2018 data. Used with permission from MGMA, 104 Inverness Terrace East, Englewood, Colorado 80112. 877.275.6462. www.mgma.com. Copyright 2019.
7. In our experience, guaranteed compensation for certain sub-specialties and in less popular locations may need to be significantly more.
8. Rural Communities: If you are in a rural community and desperately need a general neurologist, find every neurologist in private practice within a 90-minute drive from your facility. Offer them a comfy guaranteed salary, no administrative burden and a quality lifestyle.
Sharing these strategies with your key stakeholders can help you win in an incredibly tight neurology hiring market!
Kindly contact RosmanSearch, Inc. at 216-906-8188 or visit their website www.rosmansearch.com.
After attending the AAPPR conference in Orlando last month, and a few of our NP Now representatives were very impressed with Allison Dimsdale’s discussion on the topic, “Transforming Recruitment and Onboarding for Ambulatory APPs ” We were fortunate to be able to have an interview with her in order to further learn from her expertise.
Allison Dimsdale, DNP, NP-C, AACC, FAANP is the Associate Vice President for Advanced Practice for the Private Diagnostic Clinic at Duke University Health System. Her clinical practice is as a Board-Certified Nurse Practitioner in the Department of Medicine-Division of Cardiology, where she specializes in the treatment of heart failure, acute coronary syndromes and primary prevention of coronary heart disease. Her third appointment is as Clinical Associate in the Duke University School of Nursing where she lectures to graduate students in the areas of professional practice and cardiology and serves as content expert on student doctoral committees. She is an Investigator on clinical trials through the Duke Clinical Research Institute and is an active participant in nursing research initiatives through the Duke Translational Nursing Institute focusing on implementation science. She has an interest in creative nursing education and mentorship, as well as the leadership interface between systems of care, provider utilization, access to care and excellent patient outcomes. In her role as Associate Vice President of Advanced Practice at Duke, she is responsible for leading the effort to facilitate Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants to work to their full scope of practice by implementing ambulatory practice redesign with the aim to increase patient access to high quality, safe and cost-effective care.
Allison sustains active memberships in the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, American Heart Association, American College of Cardiology, American Nurses Association, and the North Carolina Nurses Association. She is a peer reviewer for Elsevier Publishing, and has been published in several nursing and medical publications including Circulation. She serves on a variety of community task forces and boards and was a Fellow in the 2016 AANP Leadership Program. She holds the Associate of the American College of Cardiology recognition and is a Fellow of the American Association of Nurse Practitioners.
She earned her Doctor of Nursing Practice (DNP) and Master of Science (MSN) degrees from Duke University, and her undergraduate degree from the University of Texas.
I have 21 years of experience as both a critical care Registered Nurse, and then a Nurse Practitioner in Cardiovascular Medicine at a large academic medical center. My doctoral work led me to a leadership role where I found myself designing and establishing best practices to design interprofessional teams to provide specialty care. This in turn, defined the need to create a structure to recruit, hire and retain Nurse Practitioners (NP) and Physician Assistants (PA) in ambulatory specialty practice. I am fortunate to be given abundant support and resources at Duke and was able to share my dream with Donna Ecclestone, FASPR, who quickly joined me to change our institutional culture, and to reframe how we bring Advanced Practice Providers (APPs) into our organization, and subsequently utilize their skills to provide increased patient access to high quality, high value patient care. This was a new concept for us and then led to the need to reframe and redefine our care delivery systems.
As APPs are now being asked to work as independent providers of care, their onboarding has become far more complex and important. As we all know, if a detail is missed around billing, or patient scheduling, or certification/credentialing – it becomes a work stoppage issue and thus a patient care issue. Reframing the way we do things and deploy APPs was the only way to create an Advanced Practice organization that provided professionalism and attention to detail in terms of hiring the right provider for the right position at the right time to take care of the right patient. That’s a mouthful, but it truly does define our goals. When an excellent interprofessional team is formed intentionally, everyone wins and the entire group can look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration in order to deliver the highest quality patient-based care.
The process of creating our Advanced Practice Office (which includes professional APP recruiters, HR and onboarding or integration) is one that we have defined and created along the journey. We saw the need as outlined above to create structure and advocacy for APPs, and to create intentional teams where APPs would be working to the top of their scope. We started with a strategic hire program, where in a small way we brought APPs into a funded subvention program for their first year of practice. These providers were carefully supported through the onboarding process, and gradually other practices around our enterprise started asking for our help in designing new practices as well as the recruiting and onboarding process. In order to meet those needs, our office expanded, and Donna developed tools for onboarding (referenced online checklists). We were able to combine with our Provider Recruitment team, which was important because in our state the nuances of NP and PA practice are unique yet important.
Today, our Advanced Practice Office offers practice consulting, recruiting, hiring, onboarding, practice metrics/data, transition to practice Fellowships, and regulatory oversight for almost 500 ambulatory specialty APPs. We continue to learn and grow and believe that APPs and their MD colleagues and practice administrators are better prepared for practice due to the professionalism, energy and enthusiasm of our office.
It is very important for recruiters to understand the professional landscape for Advanced Practice Providers. Although an NP was first a Registered Nurse, as an NP they are practicing medicine from the nursing perspective. This makes their practice wellness based and generally very holistic. A PA has never been a nurse, and they are trained to do the same work from a biomedical perspective. Once in practice for a few years and depending on the nuances of state laws (which are ever changing), their practices may look very similar. APPs are in high demand all around the country, and they will be attracted to an organization that from day one treats them as a professional. The communication, interviews, and hiring process is best done in a way that mirrors that of their physician colleagues. This will attract highly qualified candidates who can be assured that they will be treated professionally in your organization.
The difference between administrative onboarding and clinical onboarding is important. The introduction to the clinical practice is imperative to develop trust between the physician and the APP, and that trust must be bi-directional. A clinical liaison or access coordinator within the practice can be very helpful in designing a practice model and a patient flow that makes sense for the patient population. For instance, will the APP work alongside the physician and manage their non-direct patient care duties, or will they see patients independently in a proscribed visit flow (either manage their own patient panel, or see patients in combination)? Will they augment the MD work by providing a procedure clinic, acute clinic or rounding services? When these things are left to chance or are not well defined, misunderstandings happen easily, and practices are not well optimized. This may lead to increased turnover and attrition, which is expensive and demoralizing for the practice.
Advanced Practice Providers should always work to the top of their scope, training and licensure. Sometimes the answer to the need to grow a clinic is an excellent nurse rather than an APP who is trained and licensed to assess, diagnose, treat and prescribe. Avoiding competition between MD and APP for RVUs or patients, such as in the case of a productivity incentive, is imperative. The group should function as a team without such distraction or competition – in this way they can provide the highest quality, highest value patient care.
Recruiters should be sure they are posting a specific and relevant position description. APPs are increasingly trained as specialty providers, and don’t want to waste time applying for a position that is ill defined or lacks enough detail to determine a good fit. APPs should be treated and deployed as providers rather than as nurses for both job satisfaction and access to care. A good relationship with their recruiter and onboarder, and then with their clinical team can set the stage for a long and fruitful tenure in an academic medical center.
Interviewed by Dorothy Blalock, Director of Brand Management at NP Now
Telemedicine is already transforming healthcare in the United States. Barely heard of a decade ago, it’s now all the rage—with healthcare administrations across the country talking about how they can get in the game. While in a field as personal (and emotional) as healthcare, the goal is not to replace face-to-face physician communication, telemedicine does augment and help deliver care to patients who would otherwise have great difficulty getting medical help. Here are 3 ways it’s already transforming healthcare:
Our primary care system in the United States is already broken, and even patients in major metropolitan areas with an abundance of healthcare facilities, still struggle to find appointments. In reality, physical visits to the clinician are not always required, and a quicker and more efficient telemedicine consult is more appropriate. Certain technologies are also starting to show promise, which allow for “virtual examinations” to take place. Watch this space.
Certain outpatient specialties such as dermatology, which do not typically come into the hospital for consults, are perfect for the world of telemedicine. Especially if they involve a “spot diagnosis” without an array of tests. Other hospital specialties, which struggle to staff adequately and involve frequent emergent consultations—neurology being one such example—are already increasingly utilizing telemedicine.
For a long time rural America has struggled to attract and retain physicians. Telemedicine probably offers the best hope to those communities for receiving quality medical care. Ideally, the physicians should be located in the nearest major town or city.
There’s already a massive physician shortage in the US, and latest estimates project it could be even worse than the 100,000 projected within 10 years. Telemedicine probably represents the most promising method to help ease this looming crisis. The new tech-savvy generation particularly will be more open to seeing their doctor this way. Watch out for it being delivered somewhere near you soon.
About the Author: Suneel Dhand MD is an internal medicine physician, author and speaker. He is the cofounder of DocsDox (www.DocsDox.com), a service that helps physicians find local moonlighting and per diem opportunities, bypassing the expensive middleman.
We at Health eCareers had the distinct pleasure of hosting Carey Goryl, CEO of the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR) at our offices. She was kind enough to organize a series of questions and answers among AAPPR board members on current trends, pain points and the role of AAPPR in physician recruitment. In this interview, we hear from AAPPR board members Tammy Hager, MBA, FABC, Lynne Peterson, MBA, FASPR, Robin Schiffer, FASPR, and Bruce Guyant, FASPR. Learn what these experts have to say.
Tammy Hager: Some of the biggest pain points in my role is not being able to get in-house physician and recruitment data instead of using search firm surveys and data.
Robin Schiffer: I have multiple roles. The biggest pain points are: Scheduling and credentialing locums. Hard to find specialties such as GI and Urology. Creating meaningful onboarding and retention strategies.
Bruce Guyant: Aside from just the sheer uber competitive market dynamics of a physician shortage, perhaps the biggest pain point is clinical leaders who do not have a strong enough sense of urgency in the hiring process.
Lynne Peterson: Besides the shortage of physicians, there’s not a lot of alignment between recruitment teams and operation teams. The operations team for example may not have realistic timelines and not fully know when to involve the recruitment team, and thus, finding the right candidate may not be successful if they don’t know the time it takes. For example, some specialties can take over a year to fill those open searches.
Tammy Hager: Organizations, including mine, are using tools to hire for cultural fit more than ever. This includes making sure the entire family is a part of the recruitment process to retain the whole family. In addition, in our organization, telehealth is a big component for many of the physicians hired. We are using that to work with other organizations across the country to provide care. Rural communities are even tougher to recruit for, so we are having to have a personalized and strategic plan for every one of our rural practices.
Robin Schiffer: All specialties need unique approaches when you are in a more rural location. We have to wow the physician and family. Start friendships from the interview day.
Bruce Guyant: Despite a limited pool of candidates to draw from, most senior administrative and clinical leaders still expect their health system or medical group to maintain time to fill averages that are as quick or quicker than the competition or the rest of the industry.
Lynne Peterson: There seem to be more physicians of all specialties going toward hospital or ambulatory practice. Also, physicians are moving more readily from one organization to another, where in the past they stayed their whole careers in one place. They’re more likely to move if their employment isn’t going well.
DO ANY SPECIALTIES NEED UNIQUE APPROACHES?
All: We find that primary care, psychiatry, neurosurgery, rheumatology, and neurology all need unique approaches because of the shortage of physicians in these specialties.
Tammy Hager: Our recruiters have a main focus on retention. We are taking a unique approach in how we reach out to physicians that have ties back to our areas (in the 4 states we serve). In addition, at Mercy Health, we reach out to residency programs that have a faith-based culture to recruit physicians to our faith-based system. Also, we have increased referrals from recent physicians we hired, and the recruiters do that by developing such a great relationship with them while going thru the recruitment and onboarding processes.
Robin Schiffer: AAPPR members that are in recruitment are working on finding a physician for the long haul. Sometimes recruitment firms are more worried about filling the position and getting paid. It depends on the firm. Some are excellent.
Bruce Guyant: The best way to influence job retention is to find the right candidate from the beginning. However, the truth is that recruiters have very little influence over the decision on the part of a provider to stay. Many organizations are seeing the value of having people on the team who are not recruiters who instead have focus on the on-boarding and retention piece full-time.
Tammy Hager: If recruiters truly look for physicians who fit culturally, have ties or spousal ties back to the locations/areas, and make sure the whole family is involved in the recruitment process, they can target those specific physicians.
Robin Schiffer: You don’t just look for skill. You look for a good fit culturally.
Bruce Guyant: The key is to understand your organization’s culture, team, and the needs of the position itself. The better you understand what is needed, the better you can appropriately assess “fit” upfront for your organization with the candidate’s needs and desires.
Lynne Peterson: Start the recruitment process early enough, and ensure that the proper screening is in place to get top talent. Know well in advance about credentialing and where the physician is in that process. At my organization, we do our checks and balances throughout the recruitment process to ensure the proper screening mechanisms are in place prior to offer and well before credentialing.
Tammy Hager: Many physicians do not know the different between in-house and 3rd party recruiters. We have to educate them, and we are doing that at Mercy with content on our physician career site, sharing content in specific magazines and journals that are sent to physicians, in residency program lunch and learns, and in email campaigns.
Robin Schiffer: I don’t think physicians realize the differences until they experience them personally.
Bruce Guyant: While Physicians are getting savvier and better at understanding the differences, most still do not know the differences. Even more really do not seem to care and just respond to each the same way and view them as a means to an end.
Lynne Peterson: I think it depends. On one hand, the 3rd party can advocate for them, but they’re not sure of the information they might get since the recruiters don’t get it straight from the organization they want to work for. The in-house recruiter has more in-depth reliable information, but they can be viewed as advocating for their organizations. It really comes down to what kind of kind recruiter they feel like they work with the best and how they go about their job search.
ARE MOST FULLY AWARE OF THE DIFFERENCES?
All: No
Robin Schiffler: It is really the recruiter at those firms. Sometimes you get lucky and find a gem!
Bruce Guyant: The most successful partnerships are those where communication has occurred up front with both parties fully understanding the needs and expectations of one another. Those who can do that and are respectful of the value of one another in the process will do well. I have personally had some excellent relationships with third party agencies who have sent me a high volume of quality and quantity of candidates.
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