1 in 2 Physician Job Openings Are in Hospitals

Most job openings for physicians are in hospitals, while demand for private practice physicians is on the wane, a national survey shows.

Merritt Hawkins’ 2011 Review of Physician Recruiting Incentives tracks more than 2,660 physician recruiting assignments the Irving, TX-based physician recruiters conducted nationwide from April 1, 2010 to March 31, 2011. In that time, 56% of the physician search assignments featured jobs with hospitals, up from 23% five years ago. Only 2% of Merritt Hawkins’ search assignments featured openings for independent, solo practitioners, down from 17% five years ago.

"The era of the independent physician who owns and runs his or her practice is fading," said Travis Singleton, senior vice president of Merritt Hawkins, the nation’s largest physician search and consulting firm, in a media release. "Doctors today are more likely to be employees working for increasingly large health systems or medical groups."

For the sixth straight year family physicians were the search firm’s most requested type of doctor, followed by internists, hospitalists, psychiatrists, and orthopedic surgeons. Health reform and new delivery models such as Accountable Care Organizations are driving the need for additional family physicians and internists, Singleton said.

While the demand for primary care physicians is on the rise, it continues to be the lowest paying in medicine, according to the survey. Average base salary for a family practice physician was $178,000 in 2011, $183,000 for pediatricians, $205,000 for internists, and $217,000 for hospitalists.

Subspecialists continue to earn significantly more. Orthopedic surgeons had an average base salary of $521,000, for example. Gastroenterology had a base of $424,000.

Urology saw the largest year-to-year increase in base salary of any subspecialty, up from $400,000 in 2009/10 to $453,000 in 2010/11.

Five of the Top 20 recruited specialties in the survey saw their average base salary decline between 2009/10 and 2010/11. Family practice base salary fell from $200,000 to $197,000. Neurology fell from a base of $281,000 to $256,000. Hematology/Oncology fell from $385,000 to $369,000. Radiology fell from $417,000 to $402,000, and endocrinology fell from $219,000 to $218,000, the survey showed.

While health reform promotes new payment models based on quality and efficiency, Singleton said the survey shows that "real world" physicians are still compensated on volume-based formulas such as the number of patients they see, the amount of revenue they generate, or the number of work units they accrue. More than 90% of searches in the 2011 survey that featured physician production bonuses reward physicians for fee-for-service style volume, while less than 7% reward physicians for meeting quality of cost objectives.

"Quality and cost rewards may be the physician compensation standards of tomorrow, but patient volume, revenue or work units remain the standards of today," Singleton said.           

Complete results of Merritt Hawkins 2011 Review of Physician Recruiting Incentives can be obtained by calling Merritt Hawkins at 800-876-0500.