Employers Offer Creative Recruiting Incentives to Woo Top Docs Their Way
Physician recruiting isn't always all about the money, but a competitive compensation package is required to sign qualified physicians and beat out competing offers in today's intensely heated healthcare employment market.
Many physicians are considering multiple positions that are close in pay range. Therefore, employers may need to offer additional, unique perks to help nudge a physician to accept one opportunity over the other. Some hospitals and physician employers are getting really creative in identifying additional ways to compensate and entice physicians to their opportunities.
Below are just a few of many real examples of recruiting incentives employers are using this year to woo physicians to their jobs. These incentives are provided or paid in addition to base compensation, and bonuses of any kind.
Housing Allowance
Housing is a major expense, so any way employers can help alleviate that is attractive to physician candidates. A few examples of what employers are offering:
- Monthly stipend: e.g. $1,000 per month for the first six months of employment
- Down payment assistance: e.g. $5,000 towards down payment of a home if purchased within the first six months of employment.
- Physician's choice: $100,000 towards a house, or towards a student loan.
Student Loan Forgiveness / Reimbursement
With medical student loan debt per physician averaging nearly $200,000, debt reimbursement is a great way to make an impact in the life of a physician you are recruiting. While offering the financial reimbursement is helpful, some employers take things a step further by engaging a third-party student loan firm to help negotiate interest rates, and then the employer may take over the loan at a lower interest rate. Or, an employer may pay a firm to assist the physician directly with negotiation and management of his or her federal debt.
Other perks that are being offered to new physician hires include:
- State Licensing assistance - Employer pays an outside agency or firm to perform all the legwork and administrative tasks of obtaining a state license.
- Childcare assistance - Some employers offer free, on-site daycare, while others may offer to pay a percentage of daycare expenses.
- Car Allowance - This is especially attractive for physicians who will be required to do a lot of commuting or traveling between several satellite clinics or multiple facilities.
- Concierge service - This helps physicians manage tasks that take time out of their day and just generally makes life easier for the physician
- Spouse perks - job search assistance, or education reimbursement.
Can your recruiting offer compete with offers from other hospitals and healthcare employers? If you are losing candidates to other offers, you may need to fine tune your offers to be more attractive.
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