Healthcare News and Trends
Merritt Hawkins 2020 Incentive Review: How COVID-19 Changed the Market for Physicians
July 14, 2020
By Phillip Miller
Each year
for the last 27 years, Merritt Hawkins has released its Review of Physician and
Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives, which tracks the starting salaries
and other incentives offered to recruit physicians.
In
addition to salary, signing bonus, relocation allowance and other data, the
Incentive Review features an analysis of
the physician recruiting market -- the
types of facilities that are recruiting physicians, the kinds of physicians they
are recruiting, and why they are recruiting them.
Typically,
the analysis section of the Incentive Review examines why demand for physicians
in various specialties keeps rising.
That is
not the case this year. Instead,
Merritt Hawkins’ newly released 2020 Incentive Review explores how Covid-19 has
temporarily decreased demand for physicians, changing what for years has been a
buyer’s market for physicians seeking practice opportunities to a seller’s
market for hospitals, medical groups and other healthcare facilities seeking
doctors.
The 2020
Incentive Review notes that while most physicians have had multiple practice
opportunities to choose from over the last ten years, some physicians today are
our of work and in need of a job due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Physician Shortages Will Return
However, the Incentive Review also projects that the
decrease in demand for doctors is likely to be temporary. The various underlying dynamics driving
physician supply and demand remain, including a growing and aging population, a
limited supply of newly trained physicians, and an aging physician
workforce. Covid-19 has not changed
these dynamics, and demand for physicians will begin to rebound before the end
of year, the report projects.
This projection is in line with a report released by
the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) on June 26, 2020. The AAMC report projects a shortage of up to
139,000 physicians by 2033, an increase over its 2019 projection of 121,900 too
few doctors by 2032. The 2020 AAMC
report suggests that Covid-19 will contribute to the physician shortage by
interrupting the training of new doctors and in other ways.
While the pandemic will change how healthcare is
delivered, physicians will remain indispensable caregivers, and Merritt Hawkins
anticipate a renewed demand for both their clinical services and their
leadership in the post-pandemic world.
New
Physician Compensation Models and Telehealth
Merritt Hawkins’ 2020 Incentive Review tracks
physician starting salaries and other incentives based on data gathered mostly
prior to the emergence of Covid-19.
This data shows an average starting salary for family doctors of
$240,000, compared to an average of $423,000 for radiologists, $464,000 for
urologists, $640,000 for invasive cardiologists, and $626,000 for orthopedic
surgeons.
Physician starting salaries are likely to decrease temporarily
as a result of Covid-19, though it is difficult to project by how much. The way physicians are compensated is also
likely to change, with physician bonuses increasingly tied to their use of
telehealth and with more physician reimbursements based on monthly payments
rather than on average daily patient or work volumes.
Readers who would like a copy of Merritt Hawkins’ 2020 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting
Incentives can download it here.
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