Recruiting, Retaining Physicians Requires Finesse

"The hospitals are saying, 'we're not going to try to pay what a private practice does' and the reality is that there are benefits to being hospital employed; you have more control over your life than in private practice," Otto adds.

As a physician recruiter, Stone also sees primary care as "the main issue for most employers." While his firm works on hundreds of recruiting opportunities at a time, at least half of those involve primary care and internal medicine, he says. "That's a lot, considering the breadth of specialties there are. I don't think the competition for (primary care) is going away," Stone says.

"Everything within the context of healthcare is going to be dependent upon enough primary care providers or physician extenders to coordinate care," Stone says. Ultimately, those physicians who are able to fall in line with organizational objectives are likely to make more. Those unable to do so are likely to make less."

(A HealthLeaders Media Webcast, Recruiting and Retaining the Right Physicians for the Post-Reform Era is slated for Friday, March 22, with Jim Stone, president of The Medicus Firm, and Floyd Wilson, Jr, executive VP of marketing, physician relations and community outreach at Metro Health System in Wyoming, MI.)