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Four simple but effective ideas for recruiting providers to rural healthcare

Four simple but effective ideas for recruiting providers to rural healthcare

by Pat Youngblood, DBA, SPHR 

This article is contributed by 3RNET Annual Conference Gold Level Sponsor, Intelliworx.

Rural healthcare facilities are facing challenging financial times. Many have high operational costs combined with a low volume of patients. 

Patients in such geographies also tend to be older, more susceptible to chronic illnesses, and are more often underinsured. That combination drives up the cost of care while imposing a natural limit on cost recovery and revenue. 

Attracting providers to rural healthcare

These challenges add to an already steep climb that is rural healthcare recruiting. There are good reasons for this, too:

  • Many providers get their medical training in urban areas and prefer to remain there throughout their careers;


  • Provider peer groups tend to stay where they train as well, which an individual provider would lose if they left for a position in a rural area; 


  • Much of the leading medical research and innovation takes place in urban healthcare facilities. 

At the same time, the competition for provider talent has grown. Pharmacy chains have opened up clinics, urgent care facilities have exploded, and even payers – the insurance companies – are recruiting providers. This means providers have more employment choices than ever. 

A simple plan to attract rural providers

While rural facilities do try to match the compensation offered by metropolitan employers, it’s difficult to win them over purely on financial motivation. Research shows that work in medicine is still a calling and that’s a more successful appeal for rural healthcare employers. So, a better approach is to understand their hopes, fears, and aspirations so that you can understand what motivates healthcare providers – and what doesn’t. 

1. Get the positioning right

Positioning how providers perceive you as an employer. Urban healthcare facilities, especially teaching hospitals, might position themselves as “cutting edge.” Rural facilities are best positioned by showing the tight connection to the local community, a slower and more flexible lifestyle, and a place where providers can see the impact of their care.

Here are some ideas for rural healthcare positioning:

  • Making a big difference in a small town;
  • Delivering tangible outcomes in underserved communities; and 
  • Offering the autonomy to see the provider’s effect on local health.

American Hospital Association Chair Tina Freese Decker may have said it best when she wrote: “I’ve often said that rural health care is about family. We care for each other and our communities as best as possible.”

2. Determine the right messaging

It’s important to speak with one voice, but keep in mind that people can use different words to convey the same message. It’s important to allow people to use their own words because that brings authenticity and different words resonate with different people. 

So, what messages might resonate with receptive providers? Our research finds that providers are quite explicit about what they find attractive about rural healthcare: 

  • lower cost of living (translates to higher take-home pay)
  • more time with patients; 
  • better work-life balance;
  • slower pace of rural life;
  • job security;
  • a greater sense of purpose;
  • better cross-training and professional development (well-rounded);
  • better organizational culture;
  • more autonomy to manage how they work; and
  • leadership opportunities.

One final point on messaging: the messages you choose must be truthful. If your marketing messages aren’t credible, retention will take a hit, and word will spread to prospective candidates quickly. 

3. Determine the timing 

The most important aspect of timing begins with position management. That means having a proactive grasp of vacancies and turnover, alongside key attributes, such as location, responsibilities and compensation requirements. 

Timing requires a proactive and hands-on approach because recruiting providers isn’t just about finding the right candidate. You must also adequately onboard new providers and ensure they are credentialed.
Industry benchmarks show the average healthcare facility will see about one-third of its staff turnover. It will take them six weeks and cost nearly $400,000 in lost revenue, which doesn’t include recruiting costs.

4. Tactical implementation

The last step is to choose the tactics by which you’ll convey your positioning and messaging. The most significant decision is deciding whether to hire a recruiting firm or to manage the process in-house. The cost of a recruitment firm can vary widely. We’ve observed fees that can range from 15% of a physician’s salary to as much as 35%.

It’s quite possible to save money by maintaining recruiting help in-house. However, you’ll need to arm them with the right tools to engage candidates and track progress. It’ll also require experience and perseverance – providers are busy people with genuinely important jobs.

Some of the campaign tactics to consider for open positions include the following:

  • Maintain a well-conceived career page on your website;
  • Post open positions on LinkedIn and job boards;
  • Promote vacancies on social media;
  • Participate in college and university recruitment programs;
  • Exhibit at job fairs, industry conferences and trade shows;
  • Advertise open roles in targeted trade publications and podcasts; 
  • Offer employee referral bonuses for provider candidates; and
  • Conduct personalized recruiter outreach to potential candidates.

 Some enduring programs to consider supporting recruiting efforts, whether you have an opening or not, include the following:



  • Develop early career recruitment programs, like mentoring and shadowing;
  • Commission your current providers as “ambassadors” to speak on campuses;
  • Create and advocate for rural residency programs;
  • Build rural fellowship or research programs; 
  • Network with community partners to support spousal employment; 
  • Initiate career development and leadership programs; 
  • Apply to speak on workforce trends at industry conferences and tradeshows;
  • Contribute big ideas about provider workplace trends to news, trades, and podcasts; and
  • Create provider testimonials and success stories – and promote them on digital and video channels on an ongoing basis.

Healthcare work is a calling

If there’s a common theme woven throughout this blog post, it’s the idea that rural healthcare tends to be a calling. Providers who choose to work in rural communities are drawn to their work for very different motivations. The key to an effective marketing plan to attract providers for rural healthcare positions rests in appealing to those motivations. 

We’ve created a one-page marketing plan for recruiting providers that you can freely download[1] . 

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Pat Youngblood, DBA, SPHR is an executive with Intelliworx. He has a long history of recruiting providers to rural areas. He also earned a doctorate in business, where he studied the challenges of recruiting providers in rural America.
 

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