The Physician Retention Crisis: 10 Proven Strategies to Strengthen Your Workforce and Reduce Turnover

As we enter 2025, it has become clear that both healthcare organizations and the medical professionals they employ coexist within newly defined needs and expectations. A bright spotlight shone on the cross-section of job satisfaction and provider well-being when the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated burnout and turnover among healthcare professionals of all types, including physicians. 

According to the Association for Advancing Physician and Provider Recruitment’s (AAPPR) Physician and Provider Recruitment Benchmarking Study, 48% of all physician searches in 2021 were to replace departing physicians—up 16% from 2018—and one-third of physicians (33%) cited burnout as the reason for leaving their organizations.

Now that we have emerged from the pandemic, many of the factors that cause physician turnover and burnout, such as long hours, high levels of paperwork and bureaucracy, reimbursement reductions, and loss of clinical autonomy remain in place. In the midst of a continuing physician shortage, burnout and turnover compound the serious physician staffing challenges that many employers face nationwide. 

Because it is difficult to recruit new physicians, it is particularly important to retain the ones you already have—but where do you start?

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Critical Strategies to Retain Top Talent, Reduce Turnover, and Drive Organizational Success

Our new white paper, 10 Keys to Physician Retention, provides the crucial building blocks to an effective physician retention strategy. Below are some of the key takeaways from this comprehensive resource, providing an actionable framework to foster a supportive, sustainable work environment. 

Consider the Physician’s Perspective

Like many other professionals, physicians are rethinking how, when and where they work in the aftermath of the pandemic. While they may appreciate recognition programs and even compensation increases, many are seeking improvements in their daily working conditions. 

If the nature of their work experience does not conform to their needs or expectations, many are of the mindset to move on. Healthcare facilities can assume that many of their physicians may be considering other options -- and they should take proactive steps to convince them otherwise.

Have a Clear Vision

To help ensure positive physician relations, healthcare leaders need to express their vision to physicians about the future direction of their facilities. One key is to delineate where the facility will be along the continuum between traditional fee-for-service and the integrated, value driven model.

Clearly articulating a vision removes uncertainty and promotes the retention of physicians likely to buy-into the direction the facility is heading, while allowing those physicians who may impede the facility from realizing its vision to move on.

Seek Physician Input

Healthcare facilities should develop a formal survey for seeking input from physicians regarding their practice patterns, how they rate facility services and management, their practice needs and their concerns. The content of the medical staff survey may vary depending on a variety of factors, including the facility’s size and its relationship with its physicians.

Recruit to Retain

The physician recruiting process can be a foundation on which positive physician relations rests or it can undermine the relationship physicians have with their employers.

It is important to delineate in writing exactly what is expected of the physician, and make sure to accurately project the financial potential of the practice so that expectations are realistic and achievable. The majority of these details should be communicated during the candidate screening process, before the physician arrives for the on-site or virtual interview.

The physician/hospital relationship typically begins at the recruitment stage. A thorough, candid recruitment process can build the trust and cooperation needed to ensure physicians and hospital leaders are able to work through the challenges that almost inevitably will arise at some point in this key relationship.

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10 Keys to Physician Retention

Add Physician Leadership

Physicians traditionally have achieved leadership roles in hospitals through board memberships, medical directorships and committee assignments. These leadership roles have allowed physicians to have influence over the patient care issues which of are most importance to them, particularly at the departmental level.

Physician leaders can play a pivotal role in getting medical staff members to embrace the levers of healthcare reform (quality payments, population health, standardized care, EHR), provided such leaders are perceived to have real authority and are not mere figureheads. 

A growing number of hospitals and health systems are seeking physician CEOs or are creating new titles such as Chief Transition Officers (CTOs) to ensure physician leaders have the authority they need to implement change.

Create a Positive Workplace

Healthcare facilities cannot control the fact that they are not close to an ocean, but they can to some extent control the quality of the medical practice environment they are offering.

First and foremost, physicians want a safe, efficient place to treat their patients, one in which they can focus on what they were trained to do. To the extent they can provide this type of positive environment, healthcare leaders are likely to build physician loyalty and rapport. For facilities that cannot creative positive working conditions for physicians, physician disengagement and turnover are inevitable. 

Today, the most important factor in creating a positive physician work environment is flexibility. To the greatest extent possible, the practice should be tailored to each physician’s interests and needs. This means schedule flexibility, which often is more important in physician contract negotiations today than compensation, and, where possible, telemedicine options.

Offer Clear, Competitive Compensation

When the majority of physicians were independent practice owners and essentially paid themselves, data on physician compensation was limited. Today, there are a variety of sources that track physician earnings, including the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), Sullivan, Cotter & Associates, Medscape and others.

Physicians are aware of these data sources and usually have a fairly accurate view of what is competitive in their specialty. Hospitals seeking to maintain or enhance physician relations should offer physicians income in the range of what is competitive to ensure they feel valued and do not seek opportunities elsewhere.

Communication is Key

Strong relationships between physicians and leadership shouldn’t just be implied—communication can make all the difference in building loyalty and engagement. A simple lapse in communication can cause a facility to lose quality physicians, especially if they feel that they aren’t being heard. 

Physician communication should be both formal, through regular medical staff surveys, and Informal, through regular contact in the physicians’ lounge, at lunch, in the operating room, or at informal gatherings put on by the organization.

As one hospital CEO put it, “When you need the goodwill of physicians, it is too late to create it. My advice is get ahead of the competition by having a really good relationship with your doctors.”

Join the Healthcare Leaders Building Stronger, More Engaged Teams

Dive deeper into optimizing your retention strategy and uncover more actionable insights in our new white paper, 10 Keys to Physician Retention. This comprehensive resource is packed with strategies to help you build trust, improve morale, and ensure long-term success for your organization. 

Don’t let turnover hold your organization back—access your free copy today and solidify your organization’s most valuable assets!

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