Forty-seven percent of open physician roles were unfilled at the end of 2022, according to data published Oct. 24 by the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment.
The "Internal Physician and Provider Recruitment Benchmarking Report" for 2023 collected data from more than 150 member health organizations of the AAPPR and more than 19,000 searches for physicians in 2022.
Here are four additional findings from the report:
1. The number of unfilled physician positions increased in 2022 for the fifth year in a row — representative of the fact that physician recruitment remains competitive and labor is in short supply.
2. Recruitment budgets increased in 2022 after declining for several years during and after the pandemic.
3. Family medicine, internal medicine and hospital medicine are the most in-demand specialties, accounting for more than one-fourth of all searches.
4. The hardest positions to fill in 2022 were for plastic surgeons, geriatric surgeons and ophthalmologists.