Max Mello
Director of Physician & APP Recruitment
Healthcare Recruiting · Columbia, SC
Physician, PA & NP recruiting in Columbia, grounded in the metro's real numbers.
We track the Columbia, SC 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 Columbia today
Individual providers with an active practice address in the Columbia, SC area, from the federal NPI registry (June 2026).
3,186
Physicians
1,647
Nurse practitioners
491
Physician assistants
Over the last 12 months, the Columbia metro added 55 newly enrolled nurse practitioners, 7 physicians, and 43 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: South Carolina side of the Columbia metro area.
Demand
What the local employer market looks like
Federal quarterly employment data for Columbia-area healthcare employers.
Ambulatory care
21,078 employed across 1,361 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 South Carolina pay ranges →
Shortage pressure
75 federally designated primary care shortage areas in the Columbia area.
0 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 Columbia?
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.