Max Mello
Director of Physician & APP Recruitment
Healthcare Recruiting · Fort Smith, AR
Physician, PA & NP recruiting in Fort Smith, grounded in the metro's real numbers.
We track the Fort Smith, AR-OK area from federal data that updates every month, the same numbers we use when we take a search. Here is the current picture, and what it means if you are hiring.
Provider supply
Who practices in Fort Smith today
Individual providers with an active practice address in the Fort Smith, AR-OK area, from the federal NPI registry (June 2026).
534
Physicians
273
Nurse practitioners
48
Physician assistants
Over the last 12 months, the Fort Smith metro added 14 newly enrolled nurse practitioners, 3 physicians, and 3 physician assistants to the registry. New NP enrollments outpaced new physicians: the advanced-practice workforce is growing faster than the physician base, and hiring plans that ignore that mix are competing for the scarcer pool.
Source: CMS NPPES registry, June 2026. Scope: Arkansas side of the Fort Smith metro area.
Demand
What the local employer market looks like
Federal quarterly employment data for Fort Smith-area healthcare employers.
Hospitals
4,044 employed, down 1.4% year over year. Average wages up 7.9% over the same period.
Ambulatory care
4,981 employed across 556 sites.
Source: BLS QCEW county files, private ownership, Q4 2024 vs Q4 2025.
Occupation-level wages are published at state level (see the parent state page); metro wage signal = QCEW average weekly wages above. See Arkansas pay ranges →
Shortage pressure
5 federally designated primary care shortage areas in the Fort Smith area.
1 of them score in the high-need range. If your facility sits in or near one, you are not imagining it: the supply math is against you. That is the search we run every day.
Source: HRSA HPSA primary care detail file.
Tell us about the opening
Hiring in Fort Smith?
Tell us about the role. We'll give you an honest read on the local market for it: who's movable, what they expect, and a realistic timeline.