Doctor Recruiting Guidelines and Incentives

Doctor recruitment refers to the process by which hospitals and medical centers recruit new doctors every year. Doctor recruiting guidelines and incentives were put in place to make this process a little easier and to ensure that everyone follows the same rules. There are many different types of recruitments done to entice new doctors to working for a hospital or office.

For example, there are rural communities that desperately need doctors willing to work in the area. The communities are fairly small, with a small population and little outside activities. Doctors are usually more willing to work in a larger city than they are a smaller one. There's also the fact that these communities usually pay less money, but only because the cost of living is so much smaller there. A Review of Physician Recruitment and Training in Rural America was done as part of a fellowship with the National Rural Health Association. The paper pointed out that the rural communities typically needed government health care organizations to pay for the work, which hindered their recruitment policies. It also goes into further depth about recruitment in those areas.

The Internal Revenue Service or I.R.S has changed the way some organizations recruit physicians. They looked at hospitals and medical practices that are considered non-profit, which gives them tax exempt status. They listed five ways one of these organizations can recruit a new physician and still maintain their status.

The guidelines put forth by the I.R.S. allows the organization to do some standard recruitment strategies, as well as some unusual things. For example they can offer the doctor help in starting their own practice later on after fulfilling their requirements. They can also offer a signing bonus, give assistance in moving, and guarantee a higher salary.

The best ways to recruit a doctor or the proven strategies can be found at Nine Keys to Better Recruiting. This article was written by a doctor with experience in recruiting physicians. A look at changes in the current policies of recruitment are carefully outlined in Doctor Recruitment and Retention Action Plan 2009.

There are also some problems associated with doctor recruiting. Good resources on those problems are Doctor Recruiting System Flawed, Military Doctor Recruiting Takes Wartime Hit, and Hospitals Say Doctor Recruitment Improving but Challenges Remain.