Pay and financial incentives used to have the greatest impact on physician recruitment, but in recent years, physicians are making their decisions based on other factors.
Hospitals and health systems are grappling with a national physician shortage, and 59% of healthcare executives said physician specialists are the most difficult clinical job to fill. Across all physician specialties in the U.S., there is a projected shortage of 141,160 full-time equivalent physicians in 2038, according to a December report from the Health Resources and Services Administration.
Recruiting and retaining physicians and residents is a top priority for hospitals, and leaders are finding new ways to attract talent. Becker’s reached out to five leaders to learn what strategies — beyond financial incentives — are helping them attract specialty physicians.
Editor’s note: Responses have been lightly edited for clarity and length.
John Cassani, DO. Chief Physician Enterprise Officer of NorthBay Health (Fairfield, Calif.): Physicians are increasingly looking for the right cultural fit above all else. The place is the place. The pay is the pay. What sets an opportunity apart is whether the culture and the practice environment match what that physician is actually looking for in their career. On pay — we’re competitive, but pay alone isn’t going to be a meaningful differentiator.
Where we do differentiate is in the other three P’s, and particularly in what we offer as a small-to-midsize system. We have roughly 2,500 to 3,000 employees and around 400 active medical staff. That size creates something you don’t find at the large health system behemoths: autonomy, flexibility and genuine collegiality. Virtually every specialist and primary care physician knows each other — they have each other’s cell phones for when they need a curbside consult or a favor. It’s a close-knit community, and that culture is something physicians feel immediately.
R. Kannan Mutharasan, MD. Medical Director of Health Network Development at Northwestern Medicine Bluhm Cardiovascular Institute (Chicago): A lot of it comes down to creating an environment where people can practice at the top of their license — where they’re genuinely happy, with a good mix within their subspecialty, whether they’re a vascular surgeon, cardiac surgeon or cardiologist. And for me, a big part of recruitment is personal touch. The moment I know someone is even potentially interested, I make a point of reaching out, especially to young physicians and fellows, to make sure they know they’re valued — even if I don’t have a position to offer them right now. A 15-minute call on my drive home at the end of the day or meeting for coffee on the weekends can make a real difference. That personal touch matters enormously.
Matt Sherer. Director of the Oncology Service Line at UMC Health System (Lubbock, Texas): While financial incentives are always part of recruiting specialty physicians, they’re rarely the deciding factor. What has been far more effective is creating an environment where physicians can genuinely thrive — both professionally and personally. Competitive pay may get someone to return a phone call, but factors like call expectations, protected time, reasonable clinic volumes and strong support from NPs and PAs are what help candidates picture themselves staying long term. Work-life balance is no longer a “nice-to-have;” for many specialists, it’s a requirement.
Ultimately, the strongest recruitment tool we have is our existing physician team. Candidates want to know who they will be working with, whether the group collaborates well, and whether the culture is genuinely supportive. When we combine that with academic opportunities, mentorships, room to develop programs, meaningful community impact and a clear vision for where our service line is headed, it becomes clear that financial incentives are only one part of a broader, thoughtful recruitment strategy — one that values physicians as whole people and future partners in our mission.
Erik Summers, MD. Chief Medical Officer of the Division of Hospital Medicine at Medical University of South Carolina (Charleston): Financial incentives are important, but so are the little things. We want providers committed to our community and our organization, because we are committed to them and their success. When candidates see that we support them and their career goals, they are more likely to join us. Having a candidate attend a department or division meeting and see that providers are encouraged to speak up and voice concerns is empowering. We want to be better, and we need everyone’s input. From my experience, most physicians want to be part of a process that is supportive, productive, and patient-centered. If they feel they are part of a team that wants to do that, they are more likely to join an organization.
Another thing we have focused on is ensuring the candidate and their family understand the community and environment. We are very deliberate in spending a full day with the candidate and family. Beyond looking at neighborhoods, we show them around town, and the things that give the community its character. We take them out to eat at a local restaurant, and a local expert comes to talk with them about something that may interest them. Examples would include a high school lacrosse coach, if their child plays, where the best pickleball is in town, if they play, or how they connect with a local charity.
Salimah Velji. Unified Executive Administrator of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Montefiore Einstein (New York City): We think about recruitment and retention not as separate efforts, but as one longer-term strategy. What we’re really trying to build is a community of academically minded, community-focused leaders who want to grow their careers here. When clinicians are fulfilled in their work, they do better work — and that translates directly to better care for our patients. There are three ways we think about this beyond pay.
- Structuring roles that go beyond the clinical mission: We build in protected time for research, education and teaching, and administrative work. They don’t have to come in declaring an interest in research or education, we build that exposure into their week from the start.
- Investing in individuals and job crafting: Someone might join as a general psychologist in our faculty practice and, over time, begin seeing more athletes and developing a real interest in sports psychology. Those conversations happen in office hours, through mentors, through day-to-day work. When they do, we don’t just acknowledge the interest; we help build toward it. We pair that person with an administrator to think through what a program might look like, where the demand is coming from, and what it would take to succeed. We identify a threshold and when we reach this volume of this type of patient, we can actually restructure your role so you’re leading that program. That’s job crafting. The message to faculty is: your career can evolve here, and we’ll help you grow into it.
- Aligning provider goals with patient outcomes: Clinicians in our faculty practice who meet certain benchmarks for welcoming new patients are eligible for profit sharing beyond their base compensation. It’s an innovative way to connect what we need as a practice — access for new patients — with something that directly benefits the provider. We’re developing additional levers as well, but that’s one example of getting creative about alignment.
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