Fix the doc hunter model

Survey results from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) and recruiting firm Jackson Physician Search has found a potentially troubling trend: Early career physicians are staying less than two years at their first jobs.

For the report, researchers analyzed data gathered online from more than 250 physicians and administrators detailing their views on the factors that most influence residents and fellows to accept and then remain in their first jobs.

“Our survey data found that currently practicing physicians of all ages spend about six years on average at their first jobs following residency or fellowship,” the report says. “But among physicians who finished residency or fellowship in the past six years, the average drops below two years spent in their first job before leaving, signaling a disconnect between organizations and beginning physicians and/or increasing willingness among today’s beginning physicians to leave their first job in short order.”

Here is a list of physician search firms.

The problems with the present two-sided model, matching job seekers with potential employers are:

1. Inefficiency: Traditional methods of matching, such as job boards or recruitment agencies, may not effectively match physicians with suitable positions. These methods often rely on manual searches or limited criteria, leading to inefficiencies and mismatches.
2. Limited Information: Job postings and resumes may not provide enough information to accurately assess a physician's skills, preferences, and compatibility with a particular position or healthcare organization.
3. Bias: Unconscious bias can influence the matching process, leading to discrimination based on factors such as race, gender, or medical school attended. This can result in qualified candidates being overlooked or unfairly excluded from consideration.
4. Lack of Transparency: The matching process may lack transparency, with candidates and employers often unaware of the criteria used to evaluate and select candidates. This can lead to frustration and mistrust among both parties.
5. Mismatched Expectations: Candidates and employers may have different expectations or priorities, leading to mismatches in terms of job responsibilities, work environment, compensation, and career advancement opportunities.
6. Geographic Constraints: Physicians may be limited in their job search by geographic constraints, such as family obligations or spousal employment opportunities. This can restrict their ability to find suitable positions in desired locations.
7. Long Lead Times: The matching process can be time-consuming, with lengthy lead times between initial application and final placement. This delay can be particularly problematic for healthcare organizations facing urgent staffing needs.
8. Placement Fee Structure: The costs paid by potential employers to search firms are too high and contribute to already thin margins
9. The process is not physician centric: Trainees completing their residency or fellowships are ill-prepared to practice the business of medicine, negotiate their employment contracts, or understand the cultural differences between working in one practice setting compared to another e.g. working for the VA v a large private health system network
10. Practicing responsible HR artificial intelligence: Here is how AI is being used in HR today and what the future of AI in HRM might look like.

Addressing these issues requires innovative solutions that leverage technology, data analytics, and behavioral science to improve the matching process. This may involve developing algorithm-based matching platforms, enhancing candidate profiles with richer data, implementing diversity and inclusion initiatives, promoting transparency and feedback mechanisms, and offering more flexible job options for physicians.

Solutions include:

1. A different platform business model that disintermediates the middleman
2. Better career planning and transitioning education, mentoring, coaching, and mentoring for residents and fellows earlier in their training
3. Instructing medical students and trainees about the business of medicine
4. Helping employers understand why they should hire physician intrapreneurs and what to do with them.
5. Practicing responsible AI
6. Teaching sick care job seekers hospital cultural competence
7. Cutting the transaction costs
8. Make the process more physician centric by doing a better job of identifying their persona, cultural fit, wants and needs
9. Practicing job seeker and medical practice soft skills
10. Providing exit ramps if they want to resign
11. Addressing the unique issues finding the right job in rural communities
12. Clarifying IP, non-clinical career opportunities, and expectations concerning the needs of women physicians e.g childcare, work-life balance, and pregnancy related conditions.

It can cost up to $1M to replace a doctor who resigns or is terminated. Guess who ultimately pays for that?

The doctor persona has substantially changed.

Here is what most employees, including doctors, want at work.

Meanwhile, the top challenge for hospital executives are workforce recruitment and retention.

We need a cheaper, faster, better, smarter way to help doctors who don't know what they don't know find the job they want that provides them with career satisfaction and success and restores the joy of medicine.

Arlen Meyers, MD, MBA is the President and CEO of the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs on Substack