What Is Involved in Primary Care Recruitment?

A number of factors affect primary care recruitment, especially in traditionally underserved areas, such as rural and highly-urbanized environments. The main factors affecting physician care are personal motivators, career motivators, and clinic support. Each of these areas can be further broken down into a number of different subsets to help determine what specifically might need to be done in a certain area. If the primary care recruitment does not do enough to address each of these areas, landing qualified doctors could be difficult.

One of the biggest factors in any primary care recruitment effort deals with personal motivators. Some physicians may feel a personal sense of obligation to helping out in underserved areas in particular. Some may simply just enjoy the lifestyle that rural life, or an urbanized life, can offer. Whatever the reason, personal motivation can be a big part of recruiting a primary care physician. If the facility is not located in an area that appeals to many physicians, chances are, it would not be long before even those who do give it a try will move on.

Another major factor in primary care recruitment are career motivations. For many, the chance to gain experience running a clinic may be a big factor. Others may prefer the safety and relative anonymity of a larger practice where they have many colleagues. Money, of course, can also be a major influence. Money means not only the salary that the physician might earn, but also any student loan forgiveness programs that may be offered to physicians serving in some areas.

The third consideration is clinic support. One of the biggest subfactors in this area of primary care recruitment is the financial solvency of the clinic. If the physician is uncertain if the facility will be around in the near future, or if it will be able to staff enough qualified support personnel, then it would be more likely for that doctor to choose a different location. Clinics with fewer support personnel may depend more on doctors to fulfill basic functions, which could be a quality-of-life issue for some health care providers.

To a certain extent, outside factors may also play a role in the choices a physician makes when choosing a facility. That may be the type of community, the staff at the clinic, or even how friendly the recruiter was when making the outreach effort. While these may not be the major factors, the presentation of the entire package is important when recruiting in hard-to-fill areas.