Spend Less On Recruiting And More On Providers

Wait, a recruiting firm is telling you to spend less on recruiting?  Well, kind of ...  What we really mean is: spend less on placement fees and use that extra budgeted money on provider salaries and other recruitment incentives, in order to make your opportunity stronger than your competitor’s.

Let’s say your practice is growing and you need to hire one new full-time physician provider each quarter.  Being that you’re busy growing your practice, you’ll need to hire a recruiter to find that perfect physician candidate each time.  The downside to using a recruiter is the expensive placement fees - or at least that used to be the downside.  

Historically, contingency recruiters charged a percentage of the new employee’s annual salary, typically 20%, which can vary wildly based on the physician’s specialty; but it’s pretty safe to say that $20k+ would be a common fee.  We think that number’s way too high, so we started our own contingency healthcare recruiting firm where we charge much less than “industry standard”.

We’re very upfront with our fees and they can be seen right here on our website’s services and fees page.  For example, our highest fee is our full-time physician placement fee at $8,500.  If you’ve budgeted for the low-end of the typical physician recruiter placement fee at $20k, that means you would now have $11,500 to put towards making your opportunity look even better.  Why not roll that money into the provider’s salary or offer a sign-on bonus?  Money isn’t everything, but it sure helps when you’re trying to recruit good physicians in a highly competitive healthcare market.

So, before you overpay a recruiting firm because their fees are “the norm”, why not try a more streamlined, cost efficient firm at the same time?  Contingency firms have no exclusivity rights (read your contract, but they shouldn’t), so if you end up paying the lower fee, use that extra money to make your provider opportunity’s compensation package even more attractive.