As the leader of a critical access hospital in rural North Dakota, Dr. G knows all too well that hiring physicians takes time. While the organization has a strong culture and great retention rates, finding physicians willing to live in a remote part of the country with extreme temperatures is challenging. He’s had several searches take well over a year. However, there have been a few occasions where the exact right candidates came along quickly. So, the average time-to-fill at the hospital doesn’t tell the whole story. He tracks it, of course, but he wonders what other physician recruitment metrics he should monitor that might have more practical applications.
Dr. G is wise to recognize the flaw in focusing too much on average time-to-fill. While it can be a helpful indicator of how much time to allow when developing your staffing plan, the number can vary widely. As much as we’d all like an easy answer to the question, “How long does it take to hire a physician?” the truth is — it depends!
As Vice President of Recruitment for the Midwest Region of Jackson Physician Search, I work with clients large and small, both rural and urban, hiring physicians of every specialty. The thing each one of them wants to know upon first meeting with me is, “How long does it take to recruit a physician?” I may share the average time-to-fill for the relevant physician specialty with them, but I always add the caveat that multiple factors can inflate or reduce those numbers. Compensation and location, of course, but also the scope of the role, patient volume, schedule expectations, and more are influential.
Even with these variances, average time-to-fill can be a useful indicator of how long to allow for recruitment when you have the luxury of planning ahead for growth or replacing a retiring physician. This number can also help you estimate the lost revenue created by a typical physician vacancy and perhaps justify modifications to recruitment budgets.
For example, the physician recruitment ROI calculator uses the national average time-to-fill for a given specialty and multiplies it by the typical monthly revenue generated by that type of physician. This reveals the amount of revenue lost for a typical vacancy. In every case, organizations will see that the lost revenue is far more than what they have budgeted for recruitment expenses. This gap may help them make the case for partnering with a recruitment firm or increasing compensation or recruitment incentives. These changes may slightly increase their cost-per-hire, but if it reduces time-to-fill, it will save money in the long run by minimizing lost revenue.
Beyond Time-to-Fill: 4 Physician Recruitment Metrics to Track
Tracking time-to-fill is helpful for all of the reasons mentioned above. However, there are other physician recruitment metrics that may provide more actionable insights that can impact your current physician search. Don’t overlook these four physician recruitment metrics to keep your physician recruitment process on track.
Number of Applicants to Phone Interviews
Your recruitment partner will maintain a list of candidates who have expressed interest in the current position and can share this number with you. The target or ideal number of applicants varies considerably and is dictated by the size of the viable prospective candidate pool. Whether there are five applicants or 50, your recruitment partner will conduct an initial phone screen with each one, presenting only those who are clinically qualified and determined to be a good fit for your organization.
There will always be applicants who don’t meet your criteria (for example, they require visa support your organization cannot provide, or they don’t possess the credentials or surgical skill set for the position). There are also those you will conduct phone screens with who don’t move on because, after learning more, the job doesn’t align with what they are seeking. If the recruiter does a thorough job at the screening stage, there should not be a 1:1 ratio of applicants to official phone interviews. However, if the majority of applicants don’t meet the criteria or decline to proceed with the next step after learning more, you should reevaluate the job ad. Make sure it is reflective of the position and is clear about the hard requirements for the job.
In my personal experience, I formally present 50-75% of the applicants I screen to the client. This allows the client to speak to highly vetted and qualified candidates who understand the job and want to move forward with the interview process.
Number of Phone Interviews Per On-Site Interview
In analyzing your recruitment process, you’ll want to note how many phone interviews it typically takes to find someone you want to invite for an on-site physician interview. (This doesn’t include initial phone screens — a good recruitment partner will conduct these with every applicant.) This stat refers to the number of candidates you have interviewed by phone (or virtual interview) with respect to the number invited for a face-to-face meeting. We typically see a four-to-one ratio with clients. That is, if a client speaks to four candidates by phone, they will likely invite one for an on-site interview.
Number of On-Site Interviews Per Hire
This stat refers to how many on-site interviews it takes to hire someone. Most of the time, if you’re inviting a candidate on-site, you already know this is someone who can do the job. The purpose of the face-to-face meeting is to gauge cultural alignment and personality fit, which you hopefully have a feel for already, too. Suppose you are inviting a high volume of candidates to visit but not reaching the point where you are extending offers. In that case, something is likely amiss in your screening process, or perhaps stakeholders are not aligned with what they are looking for. At Jackson Physician Search, we expect clients to conduct two or three interviews per placement.
Offer Acceptance Rate
On the other hand, if you are repeatedly extending offers that aren’t getting accepted, this indicates a problem elsewhere in the process. This is why tracking your offer acceptance rate, or how many offers it takes to obtain an acceptance, is important. When a candidate invests the time to visit your facility and spend time in your community, they are clearly interested. So, if most of them are turning down your offers, it’s important to investigate what exactly has turned them off. Is it something you can tweak about the site visit? Is the contract language off-putting, or are the terms too restrictive? Are the compensation terms not reflective of what has been advertised and discussed?
As competition for physicians continues to increase, an acceptance rate of 100% is an unrealistic target, and some organizations may see their typical offer acceptance rate shrinking. In this market, a typical offer acceptance rate may be anywhere from one in two to one in four. Circumstances vary, of course, but if you are extending more than four or five offers without reaching an agreement, it is most likely time to revisit the offer itself, along with your contract language or offer process.
Leveraging Physician Recruitment Metrics
By tracking these numbers as the search progresses, clients can make real-time adjustments to increase the effectiveness of the current search. For example, if the group has spoken to more than four candidates by phone but no one can agree on someone to invite for a face-to-face meeting, this may be a sign you need to revisit the requirements for the role and ensure expectations are aligned. Or, if you’ve extended five offers with no takers, it could be time to rethink the compensation package or the contract language. Of course, each situation is unique, but these physician recruitment benchmarks can be useful indicators of when it might be time to reexamine a specific aspect of the current search.
Additionally, conducting a retrospective analysis of your organization’s overall recruitment metrics can help develop staffing plans and recruitment budgets. Things like time-to-fill, time-to-hire, and cost-per-hire can be especially illuminating in a high-level analysis. Those figures can tell a broader story about recruitment at your organization and help to identify areas of improvement.
Physician recruitment metrics reveal actionable insights to improve your organization’s recruitment processes. At Jackson Physician Search, we analyze data for thousands of searches nationwide to develop physician recruitment benchmarks and identify trends that inform our recruitment strategy for each client. Reach out today to learn more about our process and discover how we identify physicians who will fit, succeed, and stay with your organization.
About Tara Osseck
With more than 15 years of experience in the healthcare industry, Regional Vice President of Recruiting Tara Osseck specializes in matching healthcare organizations with physicians who are a strong fit for the role and the culture. Her healthcare career began as a physician liaison. It quickly expanded to include physician recruitment, strategic planning, and business development, working for various hospitals throughout Memphis, Tennessee, and St. Louis, Missouri. Based in St. Louis, Osseck leads the firm’s Midwest Division, placing providers across the Midwest and Upper Midwest. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Truman State University and a master’s in health care administration and management from The University of Memphis.
