Photo Credit: Nuthawut Somsuk
AMN Healthcare’s 2024 report on clinician recruitment and compensation trends shows rising salaries and bonuses for most physicians and steady specialist demand.
Over the past few years, recruiting and salary trends in the healthcare industry have significantly changed. To ensure success when searching for employment as a physician, healthcare professionals would benefit from understanding how the wind is swaying in the recruitment arena. A helpful tool for understanding the latest changes in demand level, salaries, signing bonuses, and other incentives aimed at recruiting physicians is AMN Healthcare’s Physician Solutions division’s annual 2024 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives report.
According to AMN Healthcare’s report, 2024 brought an overall increase in mean starting salaries for physicians and advanced practice professionals (APPs). More specifically, 13 out of 20 specialties saw a rise in starting salaries, whereas only four specialties saw salaries decrease. Orthopedic surgeons topped the list, with an average starting salary of $686,000. Pediatricians were the lowest paid, with an average salary of $244,000.
Signing bonuses are common rewards for newly hired physicians. AMN Healthcare’s report notes that the mean signing bonus for physicians is $31,473. Other typical rewards include relocation and continuing medical education (CME) allowances. Employers offer a mean relocation allowance of $11,284 to physicians and $7,910 to nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs). Regarding CME allowances, physicians receive a mean allowance of $3,969, NPs, and PAs receive an allowance of $2,195.
It is important to note that NPs are, according to AMN Healthcare’s report, highly desirable. They sit ahead of all the other healthcare professionals as the most searched. The authors note that NPs often fill in voids due to physician shortages. As such, there is a trend of NPs accepting positions at everything from urgent care centers to telemedicine platforms to retail clinics. Additionally, specialty practices have increased their NP hires. As indicated by the authors, the mean NP salary rose 8.6% over the past year, from $158,000 in 2023 to $164,000 in 2024. Regarding overall search engagements, NPs came in second most searched.
Family physicians came in at number one for most overall search engagements. The authors point out that the mean starting salary for family physicians rose 6.27%, from $255,000 in 2023 to $271,000 in 2024. Despite the high number of search engagements and rising salaries for family physicians, overall demand for all kinds of primary care physicians (PCPs) saw a marked decline over the past year. A mere 14% of reported search engagements in 2024 were for PCPs—a 3% decrease from 2023. Comparatively, APP search engagements climbed from 19% in 2023 to 23% in 2024.
AMN Healthcare found that searches for APPs like PAs, NPs, and certified registered nurse anesthetists outperformed PCP searches, suggesting the trend of patients switching from PCPs to other options like urgent care centers, retail clinics, and telemedicine professionals. While PCPs are trending downward, specialists are seeing a steady hold of interest, with around two-thirds of 2024 search engagements geared toward physicians like obstetricians/gynecologists, radiologists, gastroenterologists, and cardiologists. According to the authors, this trend reflects the baby-boomer generation depending on specialists for their healthcare needs.
