Job Placement · Healthcare · Physician Recruiters
A physician recruiter sources and screens MD, DO and PA candidates for a permanent hire. Contingency and retained search firms charge 20% to 25% of first-year compensation. BEG prices the same search as a flat milestone fee, from $22,640 for a physician and $12,864 for a PA, and places most searches in 23 to 35 days against a 118-day national median.
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The Sticker Shock Is Real, Just Not Where You Expect It
The line item everyone negotiates hardest, the recruiting fee, is routinely the smallest number on the page. The ones nobody budgets for are what add up.
| Cost category | Typical range | Who usually absorbs it |
|---|---|---|
| Sourcing and advertising | $2,000 to $15,000+ per search | Internal budget or search firm |
| Contingency search firm fee | 20% to 25% of first-year base compensation | Due at placement |
| Candidate interviews and site visits | $2,000 to $8,000 | Hiring organization |
| Relocation assistance | $5,000 to $20,000+ | Hiring organization |
| Credentialing and onboarding | $3,000 to $10,000 | Hiring organization |
| Vacancy cost, per day open | $5,000 to $10,000 a day | Absorbed as lost patient revenue |
Ranges per CI Health Group's 2026 analysis of physician recruitment costs. A 200-day search can reach six or seven figures once vacancy cost is counted. BEG's flat milestone fee replaces only the second row, but a faster search shrinks every row below it, the vacancy cost most of all. isolved, whose Job Placement program BEG resells on milestone terms, describes the service as sourcing and pre-screening candidates to deliver qualified, interview-ready applicants, which is the second row and nothing else on this table.
What 15,000 Searches Actually Showed
AAPPR surveyed nearly 130 health organizations on more than 15,000 searches for its 2025 benchmarking report. The headline number is not encouraging.
The Supply Problem Underneath The Timeline
Two demographic curves moving in the same direction at once, plus a distribution problem that shortage counts alone understate.
AAMC projects a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036, driven primarily by demographics on both ends of the pipeline. The population aged 65 and older is projected to grow 34.1% by 2036, with the 75-and-older population growing 54.7%, and older Americans use more physician care per person than younger ones. At the same time, 20% of the current clinical physician workforce is already 65 or older and 22% is between 55 and 64, so 42% of practicing physicians are approaching or past typical retirement age, per AAMC's 2024 physician workforce projections report.
The distribution problem is larger than the supply problem. AAMC separately estimates that if communities currently underserved by the healthcare system could access care at the same rate as better-served populations, the country would have needed roughly 202,800 more physicians as of 2021 alone, over five times the size of the headline shortage figure. That gap concentrates in rural and lower-income markets, which is exactly where searches already run longest and candidate pools run thinnest.
The Search Some Firms Skip Past
A different tier, a different growth curve and a meaningfully faster timeline, not a smaller version of the same search.
| Metric | Physician assistant | Physician |
|---|---|---|
| BLS median wage, May 2025 | $135,880 | $275,930 |
| BLS projected growth, 2025 to 2035 | 21%, third fastest of any BLS-tracked occupation | 4%, about average |
| AAPPR median time-to-fill | 77 days, grouped with NPs as advanced practice providers | 118 days |
| BEG milestone fee | Tier III, $12,864 to $15,437 | Tier V, $22,640 to $27,168 |
PA employment is projected to grow from 168,900 jobs in 2025 to 204,600 by 2035, about 11,500 openings a year, per BLS data for physician assistants. Physician openings run about 22,100 a year against a far larger existing base, per BLS data for physicians and surgeons.
If Locum Tenens Or Travel Physician Work Brought You Here
No. Locum tenens is a genuinely different arrangement, and conflating the two is the most expensive mistake a search can make.
A locum tenens firm, also marketed as a physician staffing firm, contracts or employs the physician directly and bills your organization a daily rate, plus travel, lodging and malpractice coverage, for the length of the assignment. The physician never becomes your employee. CI Health Group notes locum coverage commonly carries a 30% to 60% premium over the equivalent permanent compensation once agency fees, daily rates, housing and travel are counted, and a six-month bridge assignment can represent $75,000 to $200,000 or more in incremental cost, per the same CI Health Group analysis.
BEG does not contract or place locum tenens or travel physicians. That coverage is often the right operational call while a permanent search runs, and we will say so plainly rather than pretend otherwise. What BEG runs is the permanent search itself, on Tier V milestone billing, ending with a physician on your medical staff and your payer contracts rather than a contractor on assignment. The fuller locum tenens comparison sits on the healthcare staffing agency alternative hub.
The Percentage Versus The Milestone
Contingency search firms typically charge 20% to 25% of a physician's first-year base compensation, per CI Health Group. At the $275,930 national physician median, that is $55,186 to $68,983, and it rises every time compensation negotiations move the offer. At the $135,880 PA median, the same math runs $27,176 to $33,970.
What BEG Charges Instead
$22,640 to $27,168 for a physician search, $12,864 to $15,437 for a PA search, fixed on a milestone schedule before sourcing starts and unaffected by the final offer. A 45-day replacement guarantee, plus 50% off a repeat search for the same line, applies from the start.
FAQ
The recruiting fee is usually the smallest number in the total. Contingency search firms typically charge 20% to 25% of a physician’s first-year base compensation, but sourcing and advertising can run $2,000 to $15,000 per search, candidate interview travel $2,000 to $8,000, relocation $5,000 to $20,000 or more, and credentialing $3,000 to $10,000, per CI Health Group’s 2026 breakdown of physician recruitment costs. None of that counts the cost of the vacancy itself while the search runs.
A contingency recruiter is paid only if you hire their candidate, usually 20% to 25% of first-year base compensation. A retained search firm is paid in installments as the search progresses, commonly a third at engagement, a third at candidate presentation and a third at hire, regardless of outcome, and is typically reserved for harder-to-fill or senior roles. BEG uses neither structure. The fee is a flat milestone amount, from $22,640 for a physician search, fixed before sourcing starts.
AAPPR’s 2025 benchmarking report, drawn from more than 15,000 searches at nearly 130 health organizations, puts median physician time-to-fill at 118 days, and AAPPR’s CEO describes physician searches as averaging nearly four months to signing with specialty searches extending to a year or more. Advanced practice provider searches, which include PAs, ran a median of 77 days. BEG’s own placements run 23 to 35 days on isolved placement data.
No. Locum tenens is a staffing arrangement: the locum firm contracts or employs the physician and bills a daily rate plus travel, lodging and malpractice coverage for the length of the assignment. CI Health Group notes locum coverage commonly carries a 30% to 60% premium over the equivalent permanent compensation. BEG runs permanent searches only. If bridge coverage is the actual need while a permanent search is underway, a locum tenens firm is the right call, and we will say so directly rather than pretend otherwise.
Smaller candidate pools and longer credentialing chains. AAPPR’s 2025 data shows oncology searches running a median of 332 days against 118 days for physicians generally, while the most common searches, Hospital Medicine, Family Medicine, OB/GYN and Internal Medicine, sit closer to the shorter end. Surgical subspecialties, behavioral health and rural placements are consistently reported at the higher end industry-wide.
BEG prices a PA search at the same Tier III fee as a nurse practitioner search, $12,864 to $15,437, against a physician search at Tier V, $22,640 to $27,168. A 20% to 25% contingency fee on the $135,880 BLS median for PAs would run $27,176 to $33,970, against $55,186 to $68,983 on the $275,930 physician median. The percentage is identical. The dollar gap is not, because it compounds against a much larger salary.
Not usually, though both get called recruiters informally. A staffing or locum agency, sometimes called a physician staffing company, employs or contracts the physician and bills for time worked. A recruiter, contingency, retained or milestone, sources a candidate who becomes the hiring organization’s own employee. Ask who signs the physician’s paycheck once the arrangement starts. If it is the firm you called, that is staffing. If it is your organization, that is a placement.
Demographics on both ends. AAMC projects a shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036, driven by a population that is both growing and aging, Americans 65 and older are projected to grow 34.1% by 2036, while 42% of the current physician workforce is already 55 or older and approaching retirement. Separately, AAMC estimates the country would have needed roughly 202,800 more physicians as of 2021 alone to give medically underserved communities the same access as everyone else, more than five times the size of the shortage figure itself.
The percentage typically does not, but the search usually takes longer and costs more in practice. Rural and underserved placements are consistently reported industry-wide as running at the high end of search timelines, and AAMC’s own access-gap estimate, roughly 202,800 more physicians needed nationally to close current access disparities, shows why. BEG scopes rural and underserved searches on the same Tier V milestone billing as any other physician search, and will say upfront if a specific market needs a longer runway.
It compounds daily. Stroudwater Associates estimates, per CI Health Group’s 2026 analysis, that a vacant physician position costs $5,000 to $10,000 a day in lost patient revenue and downstream referrals. At a conservative $5,000 a day, a 200-day search represents roughly $1,000,000 in lost revenue opportunity before a single recruiting fee is paid. That number usually dwarfs the search fee itself, which is why filling the role faster matters more than negotiating the percentage down.
The terms get used interchangeably online, but they are not always the same business. Physician staffing company and physician staffing firm usually mean the hourly, locum-style model covered above. Physician recruitment agency and physician employment agency more often mean a percentage-fee placement firm, contingency or retained, that sources a permanent hire. BEG is none of those. BEG is not a staffing agency, a recruitment agency or an employment agency. BEG is a permanent-placement firm on flat milestone billing, from $22,640 for a physician search.
Same milestone structure, different tier and a materially different timeline. PAs are BLS’s third fastest-growing healthcare occupation at 21% projected growth from 2025 to 2035, and AAPPR’s 77-day median for advanced practice providers runs well under the 118-day physician median. A PA search is priced as a Tier III engagement, $12,864 to $15,437, against Tier V for a physician.
Hiring a specific role, or need a nurse instead? See physician placement, physician assistant placement, nurse recruiters and the healthcare staffing agency alternative hub, or all healthcare placement.
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