Turnover and subsequent vacancies are unavoidable in the healthcare industry. In fact, it happens so frequently that it can be easy to forget the costs of having a vacancy at your practice or facility, especially the long-term impact. According to an Association of Physician Recruiters’ (ASPR) 2018 survey, 40% of physician vacancies in 2017 remained vacant.

With physician demand at an all-time high, you may be looking at an unfilled position for longer than you’d like. Having a shortage of healthcare providers can have negative impacts throughout your facility. Although the cost of recruiting and hiring new talent can seem like an expensive investment, a vacancy in your facility may cost you more.

Lost revenue

As you know, facilities without providers are just empty buildings with medical supplies. Physicians generate the majority of revenue produced by most healthcare facilities. It is obvious that when a position goes unfilled, it will result in a loss of revenue. For example, a family practice physician generates almost $1.5 million in gross charges each year. This means that a practice could lose nearly $125,000 each month or $4,000 a day during an unfilled vacancy. A neurosurgeon can generate roughly $2.5 million in gross charges yearly, resulting in a loss of over $200,000 each month or $7,000 every day.

As these numbers clearly illustrate, one physician vacancy is equivalent to thousands of dollars of lost revenue – every day the position remains unfilled.

Staff fatigue

Another cost of a physician vacancy is the increased stress on your current staff and the toll it can take over the long term. The impact of an unfilled position affects not only the department with the vacancy; it ripples out and can be felt across many departments and providers. Losing just one provider can place an increased amount of pressure on your entire staff to pick up the slack.

When doctors and clinicians are overworked in healthcare facilities, morale becomes low and staff turnover is higher. The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) reports that physician burnout increases the odds by 200% of a physician leaving a practice for reasons other than retirement. If you already have one vacancy to fill, get it filled quickly before having to deal with another one.

Lower quality of care

When medical practices and healthcare facilities are short-staffed and stressed, patients often suffer as a result. If your team is a man or woman down, they will move through patients more quickly to meet the demands. Patients can become easily frustrated and concerned about the lack of individual attention they are receiving. They may choose to look elsewhere for care when there is a physician vacancy at their current practice.

If patients feel that they are receiving higher quality care at another facility, your competitors will benefit. Once a competitor has the opportunity to develop relationships with patients who were once loyal to your practice, the ability to get them back decreases exponentially.

Filling physician vacancies

Through the points described above, it’s clear just how costly having an unfilled provider position can be. The same applies not only for doctors but for physician assistants and nurse practitioners as well. To avoid these costs to your practice, it’s vital to fill open positions in a timely manner.

One of the many benefits of working with a credible healthcare staffing agency is the agency’s ability to identify quality candidates and fill positions quickly – helping you avoid the expensive costs of vacancies and maximize your revenue stream.

TinkBird Healthcare Staffing can provide pre-qualified, highly talented candidates to complement your clinical staff. We have years of experience catering to the needs of healthcare facilities of all types. Our professional medical recruiters will conduct a comprehensive search from our large network of medical providers; then we’ll do the initial interviews to narrow down the pool. Our job is to make your job easier and to help our clients achieve the ideal provider/patient ratio.

Do you have a provider vacancy that needs to be filled? Contact us today to see how we can help.

1 Merritt Hawkins 2016 Physician Inpatient/Outpatient Revenue Survey