Max Mello
Director of Physician & APP Recruitment
Healthcare Recruiting · Knoxville, TN
Physician, PA & NP recruiting in Knoxville, grounded in the metro's real numbers.
We track the Knoxville, TN 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 Knoxville today
Individual providers with an active practice address in the Knoxville, TN area, from the federal NPI registry (June 2026).
2,975
Physicians
1,968
Nurse practitioners
702
Physician assistants
Over the last 12 months, the Knoxville metro added 94 newly enrolled nurse practitioners, 9 physicians, and 54 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: Tennessee side of the Knoxville metro area.
Demand
What the local employer market looks like
Federal quarterly employment data for Knoxville-area healthcare employers.
Hospitals
14,447 employed, up 4.1% year over year. Average wages up 0.6% over the same period.
Ambulatory care
25,577 employed across 1,941 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 Tennessee pay ranges →
Shortage pressure
56 federally designated primary care shortage areas in the Knoxville area.
4 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 Knoxville?
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.