How Much Do Physician Recruiters Charge? Contingency, Retained, and What the Fee Buys

It is the first question every hospital, practice and surgical facility asks a physician recruitment firm, and most firms answer it badly: either with a number that turns out to be a starting point, or with a speech about value that never gets to the number. Here is the straight version, including the part where we tell you what we charge.

The two ways physician recruiters get paid

Permanent physician, nurse practitioner and physician assistant search runs on one of two models, and the model matters more than the rate.

• Contingency.You pay nothing unless you hire the firm's candidate. The fee is a percentage of the provider's first-year compensation, invoiced when they start. The search is not exclusive, so you can run several firms at once, and the firm carries the risk of a search that never closes.
• Retained. You pay part of the fee up front, usually in instalments tied to milestones, and the firm works the search exclusively. Retained is used for seats that are hard to fill, senior, or confidential, where you want one team accountable for the outcome rather than three teams sending you the same three CVs.

Whichever model you choose, the provider never pays. If a recruiter asks a physician for money, that is not how permanent placement works, and it is a reason to walk away.

What the number depends on

Fees vary between firms and between searches, and the honest answer to “how much” is “it depends on four things.”

• The specialty. A subspecialty surgeon in a thin market is a longer, harder search than a primary care nurse practitioner in a large metro, and the fee structure usually reflects that.
• The market. The same seat costs more to fill where supply is short. Every state we track has a market page with active physician, NP and PA counts from the federal registry and the federally designated shortage areas, which is where that conversation should start.
• The model. Retained searches carry more of the fee up front and often a lower total; contingency puts all of the risk on the firm and prices for it.
• Your own agreement. Many hospital systems and larger groups have a standard vendor fee agreement. A firm that insists on its own paper for a routine search is telling you something.

What the fee actually buys

A posting on a job board costs a fraction of a search fee and reaches the providers who are actively looking. Most of the providers you want are not looking. They are employed, reasonably content, and would take a call about the right seat if the right person made it. The fee pays for that call, and for everything after it:

• The approach. Finding and contacting the providers who are not reading your posting, confidentially, one at a time.
• The screen. This is where firms differ most. A recruiter who has never worked a clinical shift screens for credentials. A recruiter who has screens for scope, call tolerance, and whether the provider will still be with you in year three. Our healthcare desk is run by two practicing physician assistants and a PhD medical scientist, and that screen happens before a CV reaches you.
• The process. Scheduling, feedback, compensation negotiation and the counteroffer conversation, so that nothing awkward lands between you and your future hire.
• The guarantee. Every placement carries one. If the provider leaves early, the fee agreement says what happens next, and a firm that will not put a guarantee in writing is charging you for a resume.

When you do not need a physician recruitment firm

Sometimes the right answer is not us. If you need coverage for a maternity leave or a gap of a few months, you need a locum tenens agency, which bills by the day or shift, not a permanent search firm. If you have a steady pipeline of residents from a program you already work with, a posting may be enough. If your seat is in a large metro for a specialty with plentiful supply, you may fill it yourself. We say so on the first call. A firm that takes every search is not doing you a favor.

What we charge

We work on standard contingency terms or, for hard-to-fill and confidential seats, on a retained basis. The fee is agreed in writing before you see any candidate's identifying details, and if your organization has its own fee agreement, we sign yours rather than asking you to sign ours. We do not publish a percentage on this page because the right number for a rural subspecialty search and a metro NP search are not the same number, and a single figure would be wrong for one of them. Every placement is guaranteed, with the specifics in the agreement. The first vetted, genuinely interested candidates reach you within a week of the brief.

If you want the number for your seat, that is a 15-minute call: the specialty, the schedule and call expectations, the compensation range, and what has not worked so far. You will leave it with a fee, a timeline, and an honest read on whether the local supply supports the search as briefed.

Related

What working with a physician recruitment firm looks like on paper, our state-by-state provider supply pages, and Max Mello on hiring a physician assistant.