Compensation Survey Provider Review: Merritt Hawkins

Merritt Hawkins is one of the largest healthcare recruiting and consulting companies in the United States. It specializes in matching healthcare providers who need employees with physicians and advanced practitioners looking for opportunities to advance.

Merritt Hawkins provides data and analysis for its own associates and other healthcare professionals. This information gives industry professionals insight into trends in staffing. The company’s team members are well respected as experts in their fields, and third parties utilize their services for leadership projects.

When physicians are ready to change their professional lives or move to a different location, they can contact Merritt Hawkins to help them in their search. The company provides services to physicians such as:

• Research-based advice on job searches
• Recruiting and job placement
• Help with interview questions and tips
• Assistance with contract negotiation
• Relaying information about different medical practice settings to find the best fit for physicians
• Help writing a CV

Related Reading: Physicians Recruiting: Merritt Hawkins Review

History of Merritt Hawkins

In 1987, six employees established Merritt Hawkins in New Port Beach, California. Within two years, Merritt Hawkins had annual growth reaching triple-digits and it became the third largest search firm for physicians. By 1991, the recruiting firm had national recognition and established a second location in Dallas, Texas. By 1993, Inc. magazine named Merritt Hawkins & Associates one of the 500 fastest-growing privately held firms in the nation.

Merritt Hawkins has served physicians and healthcare staffing stakeholders for over 35 years. During this time, they have broadened their services to provide valuable insights, such as :

• Merritt Hawkins Guide to Physician Recruitment, written by company executives
• One of the largest collection of physicians surveys in the United States
• First physician recruiting app, giving physicians real time access to medical practice opportunity information and granting users instant access to a wide range of physician demographics
• Physician Access Index, which ranks each state by access to physician services

Merritt Hawkins Data Sources

To remain a trusted source, Merritt Hawkins must utilize the most reliable, dependable information available. Keep reading for a better understanding of the company’s data sources:

• Types of data: Merritt Hawkins keeps physicians abreast of the latest data on physician compensation by conducting numerous physician compensation surveys. These surveys look at the number of physicians working in a given field as well as potential patient revenue.
• Surveys available: Merritt Hawkins collects and analyzes survey results to stay updated on trends. Areas of concentration include:
  • Resident practice preferences, physician compensation, and revenue generation
  • Annual Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives
  • Survey of Physician Inpatient/Outpatient Revenue
  • Survey of Physician Appointment Wait Times
  • Survey of Physicians and COVID-19
  • 2021 Survey of Final-year Medical Residents

While Merritt Hawkins provides reports for physicians to inform their decisions on changing jobs, it also publishes a compensation report for physicians, which supplies physicians with salary comparisons for different regions.

Merritt Hawkins’ Physician Compensation Report

This physician compensation report answers questions such as:

• What types of physicians make the most money?
• What healthcare positions are in the greatest demand?
• How does your salary compare to other specialties?
• What portion of the country is paying more for positions in your specialty area?
• What areas or fields are offering the biggest bonuses?
• Last published date: The last published date of data from Merritt Hawkins is June 30, 2022, when the company released its “2022 Review of Physician and Advanced Practitioner Recruiting Incentives.” This report was conducted to look at physician recruiting incentives in the healthcare industry.
• Sample size: The review used a representative sample of the 2,695 permanent physicians and advanced practitioner searches. This review looked at which medical jobs are in the greatest demand and which types of medical settings are recruiting.
• Methodology: The study was done over a 12-month period from April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022. Researchers then tracked the starting salaries and other recruiting incentives rather than the entire package of compensation for a physician. They then dissected the information to find out the exact number of incentives offered to physicians to accept a position. Note that this doesn’t include what the physicians actually received after beginning a new position. Instead, the survey records the amounts offered for each position.
• How a physician could participate in the survey: The review used a random sample of searches that were already completed in the 12-month period.

Related: The Definitive Guide to wRVU Physician Compensation

Next, learn how Merritt Hawkins compares to other salary and recruiting data services.

How Does Merritt Hawkins Compare?

Merritt Hawkins is one of the largest and most often utilized physician recruiting firms. They provide services to place physicians seeking jobs. In doing so, the company has created a methodology that puts them ahead of the competition when it comes to matching the highest quality physicians and advanced medical personnel with hiring healthcare organizations.

Merritt Hawkins is a solid competitor against other providers such as MGMA, Sullivan Cotter, Medscape, AMGA, Doximity, Salary.com and the U.S. Department of Labor & Statistics. Let’s look at each one of these in turn.

MGMA

• MGMA: Medical Group Management Association, or MGMA, provides mentorships and resources to help medical professionals get a job or obtain a certification. It also helps healthcare facilities post jobs. MGMA requires a membership to use its services. Both medical professionals and facilities use MGMA for:
  • Innovative ideas and networking events
  • Information to make a profitable practice
  • Educational certifications
  • Statistics
  • Benchmarking data
  • Success strategies
  • Access to industry experts and thought leaders

Sullivan Cotter

• Sullivan Cotter: Sullivan Cotter is an independent consulting firm that studies the benefits, effects, and implications of workforce strategies in the medical field. They help healthcare organizations reach their objectives by learning to manage their businesses. Sullivan Cotter uses compensation, productivity benchmarking, and workforce analytics data to help keep production high. It also advises healthcare organizations on how to attract the best physicians.

Medscape

• Medscape: Medscape provides access to medical information for physicians as well as continuing education for physicians and health professionals. Additionally, membership is free and Medscape offers all of its services and resources at no charge.

AMGA

• AMGA: the American Medical Group Association is a trade association that represents medical groups and integrated systems of care in different specialties. They educate, advocate, innovate and empower members to deliver the next level of high-performance health. There is a membership required.

Doximity

• Doximity: Doximity is a social media platform made specifically for healthcare practitioners to locate one another without violating of privacy laws. Their online directory includes i the name, resume, education, and workplace of provider members. This allows the doctors to find specialists or other healthcare professionals for their patients. They also allow doctors to call patients without revealing their phone numbers. Doximity is all about privacy for healthcare professionals. Like many of the platforms discussed, Doximity charges a fee to users.

Salary.com

• Salary.com: Salary.com builds and enhances cloud-based software to give information about compensation in an array of fields, helping its customers attract the best employees. It simplifies the connections between people and pay. Salary.com’s technology is integrated with actionable data and content, so it empowers customers to make compensation decisions and helps them reward, attract, motivate, and retain top employees. It lists every salary for every position in a specific field. Salary.com also provides job listings as well as advice for jobseekers. It has comparison tools, negation tips, cost-of-living calculators, and benefits lists.

U.S. Dept of Labor & Statistics

• US Dept of Labor & Statistics: Like Salary.com, the US Department of Labor and Statistics’ salary comparison is free to use. They have a large database with employer-reported data that comes from government-run surveys across the nation. They have a wide array of reports users can download with exceptional data filters. Unfortunately, some of the free downloadable reports are difficult to understand and the specific bonus data isn’t available. The names of the companies that responded to the surveys are not provided as well.

Merritt Hawkins offers proprietary data not available on many competitor sites. So, it’s a trusted source for user who need the most accurate information on salaries in the healthcare niche.

Read about even more Compensation Providers:
Comparably  |  ZipRecruiter  |  Payscale  |  Top Reports of 2020

How Can Data Be Accessed with Merritt Hawkins?

The reports, survey, blogs, and other research is available through the Thought Leadership tab on their website. You can do a search for a survey or scroll through the library based on the latest published survey. In order to access the survey, you must download it. To do so, you have to give your name, email address, telephone number, organization, and title.

Cost of Surveys

There is no cost to access the survey results. You can access them by supplying your information. The company will send a link to download the survey within minutes. This makes it easy for recent graduates, HR staff, and others to access useful salary information without paying a subscription fee.

How Would Physicians Use the Data?

Physicians can use the data at Merritt Hawkins to inform their job search. The data provided allows physicians and other advanced medical personnel to look at compensation for their desired job, how many people are vying for jobs in that field, what kind of incentives healthcare providers are offering to incoming physicians, and processes to find and apply to jobs in the medical field.

Other Essential Data for Physicians

Disability Insurance

Once you’ve landed your dream job, insure that income with disability insurance. What would happen if you suddenly could not work? How would you pay your bills? Let us help find the best disability policy for you. We work with the Big 6 providers, as well as smaller providers for those special circumstances. If you want to do some more research first, read our free guide here: The Definitive Guide To Physician Disability Insurance. The guide contains info to help you decide how much disability insurance you need, situations in which you would need to supplement your income if you were injured, and the types of situations disability insurance would cover.

Life Insurance

Physicians Thrive can help you protect your loved ones for the future by helping you find the best type of life insurance and the best providers for your needs. Physicians and advanced practitioners can also read our complete guide to life insurance, which will help you decide how much life insurance you need, the steps you need to take, what type of insurance, and which company you should use. This guide will also detail life insurance riders such as accelerated death and critical illness that you may want to add for an extra layer of protection for your loved ones.

Contract Review

Finally, if you’re currently job searching, our contract review service can help you ensure you get the most out of your employment contract. We provide unlimited access to a financial planner and licensed attorney throughout the negotiation process. Negotiating the best benefits for our clients is what we do best. It can be a very confusing process and you can miss out on items you didn’t know were available. Our trained experts know all the factors of contract negotiations. Our contract review service has so far helped physicians negotiate more than 20,000 contracts nationwide.

Would you like to learn more about how Physicians Thrive can assist you in earning the income you deserve? Contact us today to find out how to meet your goals effortlessly.

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