Having a physician vacancy is no longer a viable option for healthcare organizations, yet many find themselves facing gaps in coverage and are paying the price. Turnover is an inevitable occurrence in the healthcare industry. At some point, all practices will lose a provider, affecting many aspects of the business including the patient base that your remaining staff is left to care for.

Unfortunately, only one in four healthcare organizations actually quantify the cost of turnover. This could be a result of the fact that most resources available to healthcare administrators are usually geared towards larger employers and not smaller private practices. However, despite the difficult task, it’s imperative for practices to develop cost metrics that are specific to their operation. Losing a specialized physician like a non-invasive cardiologist can cost your hospital about $7,367 per day each day that the position goes unfilled. With the average physician search lasting 194 days (about 6 months), that’s nearly $1.5 Million in lost inpatient revenue. In addition, every day the position remains vacant is a detriment to the continuity of care that your patients have come to expect from your practice. This can have a lasting impact on your reputation, patient loyalty, and revenue.

Based on new data, the physician shortage is now estimated to reach up to 120,000 doctors by the year 2030. This growing discrepancy between supply and demand continues to drive the vicious cycle of physician turnover. Beyond proactively working to ensure that your physicians are satisfied professionally, there aren’t a whole lot of options for preventing a vacancy. When time is of the essence, you can, however, have something in place for when all else fails. Pacific Companies can help you create a plan that includes your overall strategy, any resources you’ll need to utilize, and the steps you’ll take as you navigate your vacancy.

At Pacific Companies we regularly publish free information in the form of surveys, blogs, videos, podcasts and even digital tools on our websites to help healthcare facilities calculate costs unique to their practice. Also, at Pacific Companies our average placement time for permanent providers is under 4 months and for Locum Tenens it’s as little as 48 hours. Since Pacific Companies excels at finding those “purple unicorn” physicians, finding top talent will always have a lower cost-of-vacancy when you work with us.