Demand for Physicians and Nurse Practitioners

A new report from physician social media and recruiting firm Doximity details physician and nurse practitioner hiring trends.   (Doximity Report)   A lot of concern has been expressed about the clinical workforce’s ability to meet anticipated increased demand from population growth, aging and increased disease burden.  Exacerbating this may be widespread physician discontent with their current work environment.  But at the same time, utilization growth has been moderate, medical and other clinical profession schools are cranking out new graduates and there doesn’t actually appear to be a looming crisis.  Doximity says there were 7% more job postings for physicians in 2018 than in 2017, up from the 5.1% year-over-year growth reported in 2017.  As you might expect a lot of the demand is in large urban areas, for example Tucson had 20% more openings, Chicago and Los Angeles 19%, Little Rock 18% and Baltimore 17%.  Some of this is likely due to physicians not wanting to work in certain places, like would anyone in their right mind want to live and work in Baltimore these days.  The specialties most in demand, in order, are family medicine, internal medicine, emergency medicine and psychiatry.  Lower in demand are pulmonology, orthopedics and general surgery.  In regard to nurse practitioners, the areas with the highest pay growth, which may reflect increased demand, were Little Rock, Des Moines and Omaha.  The top specialties in terms of NP demand were family practice, general practice, adult care and psychiatric NP.  Nurse practitioner and physician demand tends be correlated in areas and across specialties.  This report and others portray a robust job market for clinicians, which should continue for many years.