Orthopedic recruiting searches have fluctuated for the past five years, according to the Merritt Hawkins 2019 review of physician and advanced practitioner recruiting incentives.
Merritt Hawkins, a national healthcare consulting and recruiting firm, included a sample of 3,131 permanent physician and advanced practitioner search assignments the company conducted for its clients from April 2018 through March 2019.
Four things to know:
1. For the 2018/19 search year, there were 73 searches for orthopedic surgeons, down from 85 the previous year.
2. The number of searches for orthopedic surgeons has varied greatly since 2014, when there were 58 searches, which increased to 106 the following year. The number of searches has fallen since 2015, with 81 in 2016 and 61 in 2017.
3. While primary care physicians garner the highest demand, 78 percent of search assignments Merritt Hawkins tracked were for specialists, up from 67 percent four years ago.
4. Orthopedic surgeons had the second highest starting salary of all physicians tracked at $536,000. Invasive cardiologists reported the highest starting salary at $648,000.