One colloquialism that may never fall out of usage is to “go to the doctor.” Think about how many times you’ve said it – or a version of it – to friends or family. The truth is, these days we are nearly as likely to see a mid-level provider at our visit as we are a doctor. And we will continue to see more and more Nurse Practitioners and Physicians Assistants in the coming years. The landscape for primary care is changing, as further evidenced by recent healthcare recruiting trends. Of course, the landscape for primary care is always changing, so what does the future hold?
In 2020-2021, nurse practitioners for the first time replaced primary care physicians as the most recruited healthcare provider, according to Merritt Hawkins, a major healthcare search firm. In the 2021 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives, Merritt Hawkins details that primary care physicians comprised only 18% of the firm’s search engagements, down from 20% and 22% in the previous two years. Meanwhile, search requests for nurse practitioners nearly doubled over the same timeframe.
In the press release accompanying the survey, Tom Florence, the president of Merritt Hawkins, attributed the shifting search trends to a growing number of urgent care centers and outpatient clinics offering convenient access to care. Nurse practitioners are also being plugged into providing telehealth services, which we have seen are incredibly popular these days. At the same time, COVID-19 likely contributed to the drop in search requests for primary care physicians. Overall, Merritt Hawkins reports that recruitment efforts dropped 25% over the past year.
Other demographic shifts are interesting in the survey: the uptick in recruiting nurse practitioners has correlated with a decrease in average salary and signing bonuses. Also, significantly fewer search engagements were conducted in small communities (population less than 25,000) than in the five years previous. It is probably safe to say none of these trends are permanent; they simply reflect the ever shifting landscape of healthcare.
