We Called It. APPs Are Top Recruiting Target, Again

Demand for APPs grows as patients migrate from traditional care venues toward retail clinics, urgent care centers, and telemedicine.

Remember when we wrote about the rise of the advanced practice providers (APP) era? Well we were on to something. The nation's most-highly recruited clinicians are not physicians, but APPs.

Nurse practitioners, nurse anesthetists, and physician assistants represented nearly one-in-four (23%) of the 2,138 searches conducted from April 1, 2023, to March 31, 2024 by Texas-based recruiters AMN Healthcare.  

Family physicians topped AMN's physician searches for the 18th straight year, second only to APPs among all searches. The average starting salary for family physicians was up 6.27% year-over-year, from $255,000 in 2023 to $271,000 this year.

However, while primary care physicians remain very much in demand, that demand is cooling as the demand for APPs heats up. Only 14% of AMN's searches this year were for primary care physicians, down from 17% last year, while 23% of search engagements were for APPs, up from 19% last year.

AMN says the transition away from recruiting primary care doctors and toward APPs reflects the ongoing patient migration from traditional care venues.

"NPs are filling needs created by the physician shortage and are used to staff a growing number of urgent care centers, retail clinics, and telemedicine platforms. In addition, more specialty medical practices are employing them," AMN says in its 2024 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives, breaks down salaries, signing bonuses, and relocation allowances.  

The high demand for NPs was reflected in starting salaries, which rose 8.6% year-over-year, from $158,000 2024 to $164,000 in 2024. By comparison, the rate of inflation in the U.S. economy as measured by the Consumer Price Index was 4.06% in 2023 and 3.2% in 2024, federal data show.

The review also found that:

• Starting salaries for physicians and APPs were up year-over-year, with increases seen in 13 of the 20 specialties.

• Orthopedic surgeons were paid the highest average starting salary ($686,000). Pediatricians were paid the lowest ($244,000).

• The average signing bonus for physicians was $31,473. The average bonus for APPs was $11,758.

• In addition to salary and signing bonuses, physicians and APPs often got relocation and continuing medical education allowances. The relocation allowance for physicians averaged $11,284, and the allowance for APPs was $7,910. The CME allowance for physicians averaged $3,969 and $3,195 for APPs.  

• Most AMN searches this year (63%) were for physician specialists, including OB-GYNs, gastroenterologists, radiologists, cardiologists and other specialists.

• OB/GYNs were 2nd on the list of AMN's most requested physician search engagements this year, up from 4th last year. Demand for OB/GYNs remains strong, but the supply may be inhibited by the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs vs. Jackson decision, which discouraged medical school graduates from pursuing OB/ GYN residencies.

 • Nearly three-quarters (71%) of searches were in communities of 100,000 people or more, which AMN says shows that demand for physicians and APPs is not limited to small and/or rural communities.