3 small-town perks that draw physicians

We know that practice location can be a powerful recruiting tool. But what is a practice to do if it is situated in a region that physicians may consider less desirable? A recent article from Medscape may offer some insights into what qualities of your locale you may want to more deliberately promote.

Most importantly, money is not as big a draw as some may think. Here are some of the less-recognized benefits of areas that might not pay big bucks:

  • Community. A community in which a physician (and his or her family) feels welcome and respected can go a long way toward making that doctor want to stay. "Communities are not built of concrete and buildings," John Hawkins, a vice president with Merritt Hawkins, told Medscape. "Communities are built of people, and those people are what gets doctors to dot the final I's and cross the final T's."
  • College sports. Big-city cultural amenities aren't necessarily the only goings-on that will attract physicians, according to Tommy Bohannon, divisional vice president at Merritt Hawkins. Local sporting events, such as those within the Big Ten or Southeastern Conference, are surprisingly big selling points when recruiting physicians.
  • Lower day-to-day hassles. Rural practices in smaller markets can have their drawbacks, but for many physicians those are offset by a shorter commute, lower cost of living and less physician saturation. In fact, densely populated Northeastern states fared poorly on Medscape's ranking of the states where physicians can stretch their earnings the furthest, with New York, Rhode Island, Maryland, Massachusetts and Connecticut coming in as the least desirable states to practice.

A recent survey from WalletHub also revealed physicians' attraction to small-town perks, identifying South Carolina, Minnesota and Texas as top states to practice based on this analysis of each state's compensation rates, litigiousness, patient population size and medical board sanctions, FiercePracticeManagement previously reported.

To learn more:
- read the article