Recruiting recruiters
Welcome back to Locums Digest, Locumpedia’s free bi-weekly roundup of industry news and trends that helps locum tenens agencies and healthcare facilities make informed decisions that increase revenue.
In this edition of Locums Digest: The latest recruiting report from AAPPR notes that family medicine topped the charts in 2023 as the most in-demand specialty, driving 10% of all physician searches. Offer acceptance rates also improved—climbing to 83% for physicians and 71% for APPs. In a worrying sign, physician recruiter turnover hit 20%, the first dip in recruiter staffing levels since 2020. AAPPR warns that agencies will struggle to meet the demand for physicians without addressing this churn.
Also in Digest 82: Jackson Healthcare earns top workplace honors, Jackson president Shane Jackson publishing a book in January, NPs are the most in-demand providers, Wapiti’s tech strategies for rural hospitals, locum tenens as the canary in the coal mine, and much more.
Physician Demand Stabilizes with Filled Searches Reaching a Five-Year High
October 29, 2024 | PR Newswire and Becker’s Hospital Review
The Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR) released its annual Internal Physician and Provider Recruitment Benchmarking Report, showing that in 2023, for the first time in five years, the percentage of filled searches increased.
The total number of active physician searches was also up, as were APP searches, composing more than half of all searches per department. At the same time, the number of recruitment staff decreased for the first time since the pandemic; one in five recruiters left their positions in 2023.
AAPPR, which studies physician recruitment, onboarding, and retention, offers this industry data to help inform health organizations’ workforce planning and growth management. For this most recent report, researchers drew on information from representatives at nearly 150 health organizations who collectively conducted more than 16,000 searches, almost two-thirds of which were for physician placements.
Here are some key numbers from the report:
- The median time from search launch to signed contract was 77 to 228 days, depending on specialty.
- APPs accepted 71% of offers, physicians 83%.
- Two-thirds of recruiters said their work-life balance was “good” or “excellent,” an increase from 2019.
- However, compared to the 67% who thought their compensation was “good” or “excellent” in 2019, there was a decrease in satisfaction: only 55% viewed it positively in 2023.
The latest report offers encouraging news that well-resourced recruitment teams are reducing time-to-fill. Still, AAPPR cautions that the high turnover in recruiting must be addressed so that agencies can continue to support positive placement numbers, particularly with the physician shortage.
Additional notable findings for 2023 include:
- Family medicine led the searches by both physicians (10% of all searches) and organizations (81%).
- Specialty searches for physicians were most common for hospital medicine (9%), OB/GYN general (6%), and OB/GYN internal medicine (5%) departments.
- Turnover among physicians and APPs decreased from 2022 to 2023 but was still higher than immediately before the pandemic.
The complete report is available for purchase. Organizations that participate in the survey receive free access to AAPPR’s benchmarking portal, where they can run custom benchmark reports.
La Vida Locum
Rural Hospitals Are Finding Technology Can Be a Staffing Game-changer
November 5, 2024 | Wapiti Medical Staffing
Technology can be an equalizer in healthcare, allowing rural hospitals to do more with less. Using technology in these under-resourced communities can have an exponential impact on healthcare delivery.
Areas that are currently being explored include:
- Automated scheduling systems minimize the risk of staffing gaps, ensuring continuity of care.
- Telehealth and other remote staffing solutions enable even the most geographically remote patients to access care.
- Mobile communication tools give staff real-time updates on shift changes and foster better collaboration across departments and locations.
- Predictive analytics and performance trackers equip rural hospitals with critical data to anticipate staffing needs and measure staff performance and satisfaction.
- Cloud-based credentialing and compliance systems streamline onboarding and ensure staff certifications and licenses stay current.
- EHR integration with staffing platforms optimizes staff allocation and strengthens cross-department coordination.
Tools that help hospital leadership forecast staffing gaps, offer smoother onboarding, and keep everyone compliant allows rural hospitals to have a nimbler staffing strategy.
New Regulations in 2025 Push Hospitals to Implement Flexible Staffing Strategies
November 5, 2024 | Vista Staffing
Hospital staffing regulations will change next year, including a stricter patient-to-provider ratio, aimed at lowering mortality rates, and hospitals that fail to meet this requirement may face fines.
Especially during the current staffing shortage, many hospitals are wondering how to increase their roster of NPs, PAs, and specialists. Flexibility will be essential. A staffing strategy that includes permanent, temporary, and telehealth staff will help hospitals stay compliant and offer quality patient care. Locums is one option because these highly skilled providers represent various qualifications and specialties and can fill gaps as needed. Agencies that stay abreast of regulations and their clients’ unique challenges offer adaptability, efficiency, and cost savings alongside high-quality patient care.
Healthcare Shrinkflation: Locums Staffing Offers Vital Solution
October 31, 2024 | Hayes Locums
Healthcare is experiencing its own brand of shrinkflation, a decrease in patient access to care without a proportional reduction in healthcare costs.
The time patients must wait to get an appointment is skyrocketing, and as a result:
- Patients who delayed treatment during the pandemic are now contributing to a surge in care volume at the same time as a physician shortage.
- One in five patients waits more than two months to see a doctor. Almost half of all patients report longer appointment wait times now.
- The average wait time in major urban areas is 26 days.
- Those in the Midwest face the longest delays.
Specialty care is more challenging, with patients waiting over a month for an appointment with a provider in these fields:
- Neurology (26% have experienced significant delays in care)
- Ear, nose, and throat (26%)
- Psychiatry (20%)
- OB/GYN (17%)
- Primary care (19%)
Facilities facing these long wait times may be looking to supplement their staffing mix with locums providers to ease patient backlog and improve access. Incorporating them into a flexible staffing strategy allows hospitals to maintain quality care during high-demand, low-resourced periods.
ER Overcrowding and Physician Burnout Reach Crisis Levels: Locums Provide Critical Relief
October 13, 2024 | Medicus Healthcare Solutions
As a nationwide total, ERs help 140 million patients annually, serving as a critical community lifeline. Yet they are overcrowded and a hotspot for physician burnout. Overcrowding is a pervasive issue, with nearly every emergency room experiencing delays; median wait times exceed two and a half hours, and some patients face waits longer than a day for admission. Rural patients endure additional hardships, traveling an average of 20 miles—twice as far as urban residents—to access emergency care.
Burnout is a pressing concern, too, with nearly two-thirds of emergency physicians citing factors such as excessive bureaucratic tasks, prolonged hours with insufficient pay, limited career autonomy, and a lack of respect from colleagues and patients. Emergency medicine ranks as the specialty most affected by burnout, underscoring the urgent need for intervention.
To address these challenges, a twofold approach is needed: alleviating short-term staffing shortages and resolving long-term systemic issues. Locum tenens providers offer a practical solution by helping to reduce strain on ER teams, mitigating burnout, and maintaining the quality of care during high-demand periods. Incorporating flexible staffing strategies will ensure emergency rooms can continue to provide life-saving care amid ongoing challenges in the healthcare system.
Locum Leaders
Jackson Healthcare Named as a Top Workplace for Women
October 24, 2024 | Jackson Healthcare
For the fifth year, Jackson Healthcare has earned a place on Fortune magazine’s Best Workplaces for Women list. The agency, whose workforce is 75% female, earned a 91% rating.
The list is compiled by Great Place To Work, a global research authority on workplace culture, selecting each recipient after looking at each business to:
- See if the companies employ at least 50 women and are led by a non-executive management team that is at least 20% female, as well as have at least one female C-suite executive
- Study survey responses of 600,000 female employees at those companies
- Assess the impact of demographics and job roles on the quality and consistency of women’s experiences at work
- Analyze the gender balance of each workplace, comparing it to industry standards and tracking the progression of women from entry-level positions to executive roles
Jackson Healthcare is also on this year’s Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For, Best Workplaces in Health Care, and Best Workplaces for Millennials lists, all of which draw from the Great Place to Work program.
Publication Date Set for New Book by Locums Leader
November 2024 | Shane Jackson LinkedIn
Shane Jackson, president of the Jackson Healthcare locums agency, has announced his new book, This Is the Thing: About Life, Joy, and Owning Your Purpose, will be published in January 2025. It is currently available for preorder.
In This Is the Thing, Jackson shares his personal journey to identifying the most joyful version of his life and offers guidance on ways others can pursue their own joyful path.
Jackson is known for his efforts to improve workplace culture. This includes being the founding vice chair of goBeyondProfit. His previous book, Fostering Culture: A Leader’s Guide to Purposely Shaping Culture, also teaches leaders to keep an eye on more than the financial bottom line. Most recently, he presented on the next phase for healthcare staffing leadership at Staffing Industry Analysts’ Healthcare Staffing Summit.
AMN Names New Chief People Officer
October 31, 2024 | AMN Healthcare
Tomya Watt will join AMN Healthcare in January as its new Chief People Officer, tasked with guiding the company’s human resources strategy and growth.
Watt was most recently the interim Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Diversity Officer at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. She led a 170-person team in support of the company’s 22,000 employees and budget of nearly $7 billion. Watt has also held senior leadership positions at Kelly Services, Inc., and Comerica Bank. She earned her MBA from Howard University.
Watt also serves on the advisory board of The Conference Board’s Labor Market Center.
Hire Power
AMA Resources for Physicians and Healthcare Leaders
October 31, 2024 | AMA
The AMA offers a wide range of resources to support physicians and health systems alike. For agencies and recruiters, these resources are a great way to share insight and support with those they staff. Following are some of the playbooks and toolkits, podcast episodes and webinars that are open-access:
Administrative Burdens
- Saving Time Playbook
- GROSS: Get Rid of Stupid Stuff! podcast episode
- Patient Portal Optimization toolkit
Culture
- Creating a Peer Support Program podcast episode
- Assessment of Clinician Burnout toolkit
Regulations
- Reducing Regulatory Burden Playbook
- Debunking Regulatory Myths podcast episode
Leadership
- Practical Strategies for the Wellness-Centered Leader podcast episode
- LISTEN-SORT-EMPOWER toolkit
- Well-Being Communication Strategies webinar
Team-based Care
- Sharing Clinical Notes with Patients podcast episode
- Simplified Outpatient Documentation and Coding toolkit
Making the Rounds
Is Locums the Canary in the Coal Mine?
November 6, 2024 | Medscape
Once believed to be primarily for physicians transitioning to retirement, locums is more common than ever before—now, 81% of surveyed locums physicians and APPs said they started accepting locums assignments mid-career or earlier. Two-thirds of healthcare facilities report working with locums, and more than half of those expect to maintain or increase their use.
While supplemental income and schedule autonomy are positive reasons for this shift, and locums is often cited as an antidote to burnout and the physician shortage, there may be underlying challenges to consider as well:
- One poll of nearly 8,000 physicians found that 63% would not want their children to study medicine.
- In a survey of 7,000 physicians, a third of those under 40 would not counsel their younger selves to choose a medical career.
- Burnout among physicians and medical students alike is high across specialties.
- Compared to the 1980s, when most physicians were in private practice, now the majority are employees.
In response to issues happening in the traditional healthcare model, locums can appear as a bandage that ultimately will not hold. However, far from being a temporary fix, the increasing use of locums professionals represents a strategic shift toward a more sustainable, resilient healthcare system that can adapt to today’s challenges while ensuring the care patients need is always available.
Innovative, Scalable Solutions Needed to Address Worsening Primary Care Shortage
November 5, 2024 | Medical Economics
The country’s primary care physician shortage is growing as the population ages, and traditional care models, including telehealth, cannot adequately address access issues, especially in rural and other underserved areas. Innovative solutions are needed at both the facility and the physician levels. With federal support, examples currently being tested in local markets could be scaled.
- Nonemergency medical transport, such as partnerships between ride-sharing companies and traditional clinics, could reduce the financial impact of no-shows and make it easier for patients to follow through on care plans.
- In-home use of medical devices such as blood pressure monitors, pulse oximeters, and glucose meters add diagnostic capabilities that telehealth lacks.
- Hospitals, universities, and nonprofits can partner with mobile clinics to meet patients where they are, which is especially crucial for more vulnerable communities.
- “Clinic in a box” is another option that brings medical care to the patient. Hybrid healthcare stations equipped with an internet connection to a live physician and diagnostic tools can be placed anywhere from grocery stores to schools.
These ideas start with current models but expand them to lean on closer coordination between clinicians, local organizations, and the government. They allow physicians to have a more significant impact while not increasing wait times.
NPs Are the Most In-Demand Healthcare Professionals
October 29, 2024 | Becker’s ASC Review
As the country faces a worsening physician shortage, there is growing demand for NPs, who play a crucial role in offering uninterrupted quality patient care in a variety of settings. There are not enough physicians to meet the needs of the country’s aging population, fill open roles in rural areas, and cover all the opportunities in the changing healthcare landscape, and NPs are stepping in.
U.S. News & World Report said NPs held the top job of 2024. Through 2032, there is expected to be a 45% growth in the number of available NP positions, or nearly 119,000 new jobs. Beyond these permanent positions, locums opportunities for NPs are also increasing as more facilities look to diversify their staffing model and fill primary care roles. Since most NPs (88%) are certified in primary care, they are seen as a versatile provider with breadth and depth of experience and skills that are especially needed in underserved areas. Whether in permanent positions, as full-time locums, or by supplementing with locums shifts, NPs are addressing unmet needs and caring for more patients than ever before.
Recruitment Starts with Retention
November 4, 2024 | AMA
Successful recruitment starts with building a solid foundation of retention. Agencies and facilities with a track record of keeping their physicians satisfied and engaged are in a stronger position to attract new talent. A positive, supportive workplace enhances one’s reputation and creates a strong internal network of employees who can help identify and refer potential recruits. While this feedback was created with hospitals in mind, locums agencies can deploy these same tactics to improve retention among their providers.
- Actively seek feedback to understand their needs and identify opportunities for improvement in recruitment and retention.
- Leverage existing networks—current providers can be some of the most effective recruiters, so encouraging referrals and recommendations is critical.
- Develop and nurture relationships with residency programs to ensure a pipeline of new talent.
- Use technology to streamline administrative tasks and reduce burnout, creating more time to focus on patient care.
- Simplify the onboarding process and provide ongoing mentorship to ensure new hires feel supported beyond their initial days.
By investing in retention first, agencies and facilities can create a thriving, engaged workforce that is more likely to stay and actively help recruit the next generation of physicians.
Healthcare Employment Bounces Back from Dip
November 1, 2024 | Becker’s Hospital Review
According to the latest jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, healthcare added more than 52,000 jobs in October. This aligns with the average monthly numbers over the past year and is a marked improvement over earlier numbers. Standouts include the following:
- Ambulatory healthcare services and nursing and residential care facilities added nearly 36,000 and 9,000 jobs, respectively.
- Hospitals added almost 8,000 jobs; physician offices added more than 5,000.
- Home healthcare services added more than 12,000 jobs.
This is a boost over September’s reported numbers. For that month, job openings across industries had dropped to 7.4 million, a record low since January 2021. Within that, the healthcare and social assistance sector had one of the most significant declines.
