Our Conversation with ASPR’s Brett Walker

WHAT THE ASPR CONFERENCE OFFERS RECRUITERS

The country’s shortage of physicians is making it hard on medical organizations to adequately staff themselves. New resources are important in that recruiting, and the show provides access to those resources. We have 90 exhibitors at this year’s event. Exhibitor space was completely sold out by June 1, and despite the travel limitations most organizations have placed on their employees, we expect the show’s attendance to break our previous record of 350 attendees.

Physician recruitment has become so important for medical organizations that in the last five years, our membership has grown from 450 to 1,200. Medical facility CEO’s have come to realize that if they don’t have someone actively recruiting doctors, they will fail. It doesn’t matter how great the facility is, without high quality physicians administering care, they really have nothing to offer.

This year we will offer 16 to 18 breakout sessions in addition to our educational program with 101, 201 and 301 level classes. Those who take the classes and pass the 101 level test are awarded Associate status, those who pass the 201 classes are Diplomats, and for the first time, we will offer 301 level classes and tests. We are proud to award those who pass the 301 tests with Fellowship status.

TOOLS THAT RECRUITERS USE

Physician recruiting is a relatively young profession. As a result, it has the advantage of growing up in the Internet age. That, plus the fact that most physicians are pretty well connected to the digital world, means that much of our activity takes place online. Websites, job boards, and other web technologies like e-mail marketing and social media. There are still some search firms that depend on cold calling and a heavy telephone presence, but we have found that it is far too difficult to get in touch with busy doctors that way.

The Internet has really managed to speed things up in our industry. It used to be that we would fax a resume out, give it time to arrive, then call to make sure it got there. With our ability to email resumes now, and follow up through e-mail as well, we can accomplish those kinds of communications a lot faster.

Social media is really gaining momentum in recruiting. However, obstacles remain. We make great use of sites like Linked In, but many organizations don’t support social sites like Facebook. Social media will continue to grow, but it will still remain just a component of recruiting, but it will be interesting to see how it unfolds.

FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES IN THE INDUSTRY

As technologies advance, I see teleconferencing services like Skype becoming a big part of the process. To be able to interview in another city, face to face, without the need for travel will make life easier on both the recruiter and candidate.

I also see sites like a match.com for doctors. Those already exist, but not in a business model that is turning a profit, but those days will come. Sites like ematchphysicians.com are an interesting clearinghouse for physicians who are interested in a change.

HOW THE INDUSTRY HAS CHANGED

In the past ten years, we have found the entire physician profession to have become more specialized. As a result, we find ourselves recruiting for every subspecialty there is. We have found it particularly difficult to recruit primary care physicians. Supply and demand being what they are, we see the primary care physician getting more opportunities to provide care in non-traditional hours. Job sharing and part time work are far more common as their bargaining power now provides them with more work-life balance. The money is limited these days, so organizations try to entice the physicians with other benefits.

THE NEW HEALTHCARE SYSTEM’S IMPACT

The new healthcare law is likely to bring about the need for medical facilities to be accountable care organizations. That means they will be paid by the patient, no matter their treatment. This way, preventative medicine will become profitable, rather than basing compensation on the volume of procedures conducted, which is the way it is done now.

Such a system doesn’t yet exist, and it will take a lot of creative thinking, and IT firepower to figure it out. But the additional 30 million patients into the system simply can’t be managed under the compensation now available for that care.

The real danger lies in the smaller communities. More and more we will see rural patients having to head to the large cities to have any kind of specialist treat them.

NURSE PRACTITIONERS AND PHYSICIAN ASSISTANTS

The number one nightmare of healthcare CEOs is that by 2020 we will have a shortage of physicians of 200,000. With the physician shortage as it now stands, there has been a large shift toward filling the primary care positions by adding Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants to aid in patient treatment. Right now, 40-50% of our members actively recruit for those positions, and the number is growing. That group is in such high demand these days, that they receive red carpet treatment from recruiters.

Physician recruitment is growing up. As the profession matures, we are able to create measurement tools for tracking, reporting and benchmarking to be able to show clients exactly what our efforts produce, and so we can investigate areas for internal improvement as well.

AS THE RECRUITING PROFESSION MATURES

Once we can provide clients with metrics that show a statistical history, we can all understand better what to expect from our efforts, and we can show the additional revenue generated by each of our recruited doctors. We’ll be able to provide the kind of information needed to make a bottom line assessment, rather than just recruiting because we know we have to.

These days, in-house physician recruiters have become a more localized service. How would a search agency in Houston be able to let a Physician in Boston know that the position in Minneapolis is the right move for him? As members of the community, organizations like ours have a vested interest in the long-term strengthening the organization for which we recruit.