Demand for many medical specialists remains strong, and group practices and hospitals are focused on recruiting psychiatrists, family physicians, general internists, hospitalists, and pediatricians. However, primary care physicians are in greater demand than any other kind of doctor, a review of physician recruitment shows.
In “2009 Review of Physician Recruiting Incentives,” the physician-recruiting firm Merritt Hawkins & Associates notes that in the past year it handled more requests for family physicians than for any other specialty type.
Requests for primary care physicians between April 2008 and March 2009 increased 23% over the previous year, the Irving, Tex.-based company said.
It added that although insurers and government programs are increasing their focus on primary care, fewer physicians in training are choosing to be generalists.
A spokeswoman for the Medical Group Management Association agreed that primary care physicians are in higher demand than other specialties. She added, however, that MGMA's own surveys show that increases in primary care physicians' incomes overall have not been beating inflation.
On the other hand, the review by Merritt Hawkins, which tracks more than 3,200 physician recruiting assignments, found that salaries offered to newly recruited physicians reflect the increased demand.
According to the company, the average salary or income guarantee offered to family physicians jumped 19 percent in the past 3 years, to $173,000; the average offered to general internists rose 15 percent, to $186,000; and the average for pediatricians increased 13 percent, to $171,000.
David Nyman, manager of physician recruitment at the Marshfield Clinic in Wisconsin, said in an interview that the disparities between salary figures in the MGMA and Merritt Hawkins reports can be explained by the different groups of physicians involved.
Merritt Hawkins tends to take on the “harder” recruitment assignments and therefore can wind up paying physicians more than the average, he said.
Mr. Nyman added that he's seen an increase in the number of groups willing to help new physicians with their student loans as an incentive to sign on. Groups are well aware that few physicians are going into primary care these days, which is driving increased recruitment of generalists, Nyman said.
“People are adding primary physicians now, anticipating that it's going to be more difficult to find them down the road,” he said.
Mark Smith, president of Merritt Hawkins, echoed Mr. Nyman's sentiment about the enormous demand for primary care physicians.
“Virtually every hospital or large medical group in the United States would be happy to add a family physician or general internist,” Mr. Smith said in a statement. “There simply are not enough primary care doctors to go around.”
Demand is also robust for hospitalists, the report said, and that may be hurting primary care. Because many internists are choosing to practice as hospitalists, the supply of physicians for general internal medicine has been constrained, the report concluded.
Meanwhile, demand is strong for various specialists, particularly general surgeons, the Merritt Hawkins report found. General surgeons are becoming increasingly hard to recruit because fewer medical school graduates who choose surgery are opting for the full range of that specialty, the report said.
More than 40 percent of general surgeons are 55 or older, and many are retiring, the report said. Merritt Hawkins said it conducted nearly twice as many general surgery searches for clients in 2008-2009 as it did the previous year.
Psychiatry faces a similar situation, the report said, with demand for psychiatrists strong and many practicing psychiatrists near retirement.
Other specialty areas experiencing robust demand include orthopedic surgery, obstetrics/gynecology, cardiology, urology, pulmonology, gastroenterology, otolaryngology, hematology/oncology, dermatology, neurology, and emergency medicine.
The search firm reported that 85% of all physicians were offered signing bonuses in 2008-2009, compared with just 58% 3 years ago. The average signing bonus offered to all physicians last year was $24,850. The report also suggested that more hospitals are hiring physicians as employees and paying them salaries. In 2005-2006, 23% of the physician-search assignments Merritt Hawkins handled involved physician employment by a hospital. In 2008-2009, that number increased to 45% percent.
“Many physicians today are simply throwing in the towel when it comes to private practice,” Mr. Smith of Merritt Hawkins said in the statement. “They are exchanging independence for the relative simplicity and security of employment.”