What's the cost of a prolonged physician search?

 

Compared to many other industries, physician recruitment is quite costly. For some specialties, the average time to hire skyrockets from weeks to months, with the most complex specialties often taking more than a year to complete.

Reducing time to hire is important, because prolonged physician searches drain resources. For recruiters, every day spent on a specific search delays other leads. For healthcare organizations, long searches can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars due to inability to perform procedures or otherwise increase patient visits.

Keep reading to uncover the true costs of extended physician searches.

How do you factor the cost of a search?

Developed by The Society for Human Resource Management and the American National Standards Institute, the standard equation for determining cost-per-hire looks like this:

(Internal recruiting costs + external recruiting costs) / total number of hires = cost-per-hire

In the physician recruitment arena, that means recruiters need to determine how much potential revenue an organization misses out on each day a position is left open. For instance, if a specialist brings in $365,000 annually, it would cost the organization $1,000 in unearned revenue for each day the position remains empty.

By adding that figure to the recruiter's internal costs, you'll have a rough estimate of cost of the search.

Example: Invasive cardiologist

Merritt Hawkins, an AMN Healthcare Company, reported that the average invasive cardiologist brought in $2.4 million in earned revenue, in 2016. According to the Association of Staff Physician Recruiters (ASPR), the average invasive cardiologist search lasts 160 days.

Accepting these numbers, the average search for an invasive cardiologist costs roughly $1,052,055. And the per-day cost averages at $6,570. Additional costs aren't as easy to notice. For instance, if an organization is without a cardiologist for a prolonged periods of time, competing organizations may move in to fill the skill gap.

Reducing time to hire lowers costs

It should be clear now that reducing time to hire will ultimately reduce the cost of the search. Savvy recruiters can accomplish this goal by taking a targeted but wide-reaching approach to recruitment marketing.

A one-stop-shop can help recruiters connect with candidates on a job board, through enewsletters and expert-curated websites, as well as via print journals. By utilizing multiple recruitment channels, recruiters can reach a targeted audience wherever they read industry news and research.

To start building your candidate pool and reduce your average time to hire, post your job online immediately on myHealthTalent.com, or contact Traci Peppers at t.peppers@elsevier.com for a customized recruitment campaign! Compared to many other industries, physician recruitment is quite costly. For some specialties, average time to hire skyrockets from weeks to months, with the most complex specialties often taking more than a year to complete.