How to Attract and Retain Primary Care Clinicians

There’s a growing shortage of Primary Care physicians in the United States, leading to a severe mismatch between the population’s need for care and qualified individuals to provide it. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) predicts a shortage of between 20,200 and 40,400 Primary Care physicians by 2036.

That said, several factors are already improving the outlook, like the growing number of advanced practice clinicians (APCs) caring for patients in Primary Care and the continued efforts to reduce physician burnout by introducing technological advances and shifts in care models.

While there are reasons to be optimistic about the long-term future, that doesn’t make the short-term challenges any easier for healthcare organizations. Executives are feeling the pressure of the current shortage in a few different areas, including difficulty recruiting and attracting Primary Care clinicians and keeping them around in a competitive job market.

With an average of 65% of healthcare organizations having open searches in Primary Care across Family Medicine, Internal Medicine and Hospital Medicine, we are facing a turning point in the industry where hiring teams must pivot to stand out and prioritize hiring for fit versus minimizing time to fill.

“So many organizations are trying to recruit the right candidate for their openings and most likely are considering the same candidate as surrounding systems,” says Marcia Stevens, Executive Director of Provider Recruitment at PS&D. “There’s a stronger focus on retention due to the shortage of Primary Care physicians, so it’s important to find the right fit and connection to ensure your candidate will stay”

Provider Solutions & Development (PS&D) has helped healthcare organizations big and small fill thousands of open Primary Care roles, and we’ve learned from experience that finding candidates who will be a long-term fit is the first step in improving retention rates for hospitals and overall satisfaction of clinicians.

But what specifically should organizations be doing? It all comes down to understanding your best-fit candidate, building opportunities that resonate with them and finding ways to stand out from the crowd.

(Are you a healthcare organization looking for support in finding and hiring Primary Care clinicians? Reach out to our team today.)

Understanding Your Best-Fit Primary Care Candidate

According to research by the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment (AAPPR), it took an average of 183 days — or six months — to fill Primary Care physician searches in 2024. For many organizations, that means six months of current clinicians working extra to meet demand or six months of patients not receiving care because of a lack of doctors.

This long (and growing) time to fill can shift hiring team priorities. In an ideal world, teams would take their time searching for the best-fit candidate, but instead may feel pressure to fill the role quickly, sometimes at the expense of long-term retention or by relying on costly locum tenens support.

By gaining a deeper understanding of who the best-fit candidate would be and tailoring strategies to those individuals, organizations can cut down on wasted time and resources to increase the fit potential of their hiring pool early. After all, a clinician’s personality, goals and priorities all impact how they search for jobs.

“Fit is the main reason physicians stay. We can send a number of candidates to a position to be considered, but if the hired physician is not a strong fit and they don’t feel a part of the group, organization or overall purpose, they’ll leave,” shares Marcia. “Our priority is to fill your opening with a physician who will provide ongoing care for your community now and in the future.”

As a healthcare recruiting organization, we’ve invested deeply in research to help us better understand what motivates Primary Care physicians and APCs. That knowledge helps us guide our partners on what features and benefits are attractive in Primary Care roles, what specific characteristics they should be looking for in candidates and how to attract those individuals.

A helpful first step in identifying your ideal candidates is to take a clear look at your organization and what sets it apart and then work backwards. When recruitment efforts are grounded in your mission, values and the qualities that make your workplace unique, it becomes much easier to see which clinicians will thrive in your environment.

To that end, organizations should take a closer look at the clinicians already thriving in their health system. Understanding what drew these physicians to the organization, and what keeps them engaged, can help surface the qualities that align with the culture and community. Sharing their stories can also help attract like-minded clinicians, including those with personal or professional ties to the area.

“Focusing on current physician stories can help attract physicians who have had previous colleagues work within your system, or who trained there,” says Marcia. “They may have grown up in the community or gone to medical school there.”

It’s also important to consider core elements of the role and the community it serves. If there is a research component, the ideal candidate is likely focused on innovation and learning and, according to internal PS&D research, is often a more established clinician. Similarly, if the community served is largely defined by a specific culture or language, a physician with familiarity or fluency in that culture or language may be better positioned to build trust and rapport — factors associated with greater impact and, in some settings, higher professional satisfaction.

One thing organizations struggle with in this exercise is the mismatch between the characteristics of the ideal candidate and whether the role supports them. Not looking through the lens of clinicians is where hiring teams often set themselves up for failure, so having a clear definition of the best fit is just the first step in finding and hiring a candidate who will stick around long term.

Building Opportunities That Resonate

The best way to ensure interest is by building roles and offering benefits that matter to your ideal candidate, whether that be compensation, schedule or growth and learning opportunities.

Internal PS&D research suggests Primary Care clinicians are most motivated by their personal missions, a deep desire to serve their community and the development of patient relationships. Ensuring there are supportive, collaborative teammates and resources available to help them spend more time with patients might be key to engaging Primary Care clinicians long-term.

Depending on the size of the organization, however, hiring managers may not have much control over the roles they’re responsible for filling. Elements like compensation, hours or care models are likely set at a higher level, so recruiters sometimes need to find ways to highlight the parts of a job the ideal candidate would be most interested in.

Is there flexibility in compensation outside of salary, like resident loan support or a sign-on bonus? Can any parts of the role be done remotely or is there flexibility in scheduling?

While adjusting the job description and benefits is the most obvious way to engage candidates, calling out non-tangible benefits is often much easier and can be just as effective.

“In attracting Primary Care physicians, voicing the support they will be given in their everyday role — proper scheduling, autonomy in their practice and strong mentorship, especially for residents is key,” adds Marcia. “Burnout remains one of the largest reasons Primary Care physicians leave a system. Mentioning work being done in this area is also important when attracting and retaining physicians.”

It’s impossible to outline every value point of an open role and organization in a single job posting, so hiring managers should instead pick what to highlight based on what will resonate most with your ideal candidate — and that might not be the same for every role.

For example, if your ideal candidate prefers spending most of their day interacting with patients, highlight the tools available to clinicians to reduce administrative time or diagnose faster. You may also focus a bit on the patient population this role will serve. Alternatively, if your ideal candidate prefers getting in the weeds with research and data, highlight how a team-based care model allows for a more flexible split of responsibilities in the care team, allowing these candidates to prioritize their time on their strengths and passions.

Standing Out from the Crowd

One of the biggest reasons hiring Primary Care clinicians is so challenging is because physicians and APCs have more options than ever, and they know they have the upper hand in the market. For healthcare organizations, that means posting a job and waiting for applicants isn’t enough.

Hiring teams need to find unique, creative ways to promote not only their open roles but also their organization’s culture and brand. This might look different across the industry, but we recommend a few broad tactics that can apply to almost any organization.

1. Start early: Sometimes, you have to play the long game, and by spending some time engaging with residents and new grads, organizations can build strong relationships before clinicians are actively searching for a job.
2. Focus on qualitative value propositions: Highlight the brand and the culture by helping prospective candidates understand how your organization uniquely supports clinicians, fights burnout and helps them reach their goals. Also emphasize the common goal of building healthier communities, as that is one of the most common reasons individuals choose a career in Primary Care.
3. Meet ideal candidates where they are: By understanding who your ideal candidate is, organizations can tailor marketing tactics and messaging more intentionally to those individuals and pick channels that matter to them, whether that be a specific job board, local events or on social media.

Improving Retention Starts with Recruiting for Fit

Clinician hiring is changing by the day, and healthcare organizations need to stay ahead of the curve to stand out to candidates and hire for fit, which means investing more time and resources into recruiting.

“It is important to ensure you have a solid pipeline and pre-hire processes in place to accommodate potential departures, retirement or growth projections,” shares Marcia. “If you wait until a physician leaves without established candidate pipelines, burnout can increase across the existing care team, causing other Primary Care clinicians to experience burnout and potentially leave as well.”

This investment also benefits the organization’s retention efforts, because hiring the right-fit candidate means they are more likely to stay long-term and invest in the community they serve.

With roughly two-thirds of all healthcare organizations having open Primary Care searches, finding and hiring ideal candidates is challenging. That’s where PS&D comes in.

PS&D helps healthcare organizations of all sizes at every stage of the recruitment process — from identifying and understanding the best-fit candidate to building compelling job descriptions to sourcing, screening and hiring for open Primary Care roles. We free up time and alleviate workloads for hiring teams, so they can focus on building relationships with candidates who are the best fit.

Want to learn more about how PS&D can help you level up your Primary Care recruitment strategies? Get in touch with us today.