Physician offices generating jobs

Government data and information from employment Web sites show growth in health system hiring.

By Victoria Stagg Elliott, amednews staff. Posted Jan. 28, 2010.

Medicine continued to be the bright spot in the economic downturn, adding 21,500 jobs in December 2009, with 8,900 in physician offices, according to preliminary data released Jan. 8 by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Anther 2,500 were created in outpatient medical centers, and 8,000 were added to the home health care services industry. Hospital employment increased by 1,400.

The economy as a whole lost 85,000 jobs, and the unemployment rate held steady at 10%.

Experts suggested that these numbers not only indicated that the health system is getting stronger economically, but also that delivery of care is shifting to the outpatient setting. Most health care sectors added positions, but physician offices did so more quickly than in prior months. Hospitals did so more slowly.

"That doesn't surprise me that most of the growth is in the outpatient sector," said Scott D. Hayworth, MD, president and CEO of Mount Kisco (N.Y.) Medical Group. "We are able to handle more and more in the outpatient setting. ... And more and more physicians, both those just out of residency as well as those with established practices, want to join large multispecialty groups. We need to hire staff in order to accommodate these physicians." Dr. Hayworth is also chair-elect of the American Medical Group Assn.

Further supporting this idea, data from the job Web site Simply Hired indicates that the number of ads with the word "physician" in them increased 14% since May 2008. Ads with the word "hospital" declined 3% (www.simplyhired.com/).

Other reports also found strong demand for health care staff. One report released Jan. 6 found that the number of health jobs advertised online rose 255,000 to more than 3.6 million in December 2009. Much of the growth was driven by increases in the number of listings for physical therapists, occupational therapists, primary care physicians, nurses and health system administrators, said the report by the Conference Board, a nonprofit public interest research group.

The number includes those placed directly by employers as well as those by staffing agencies. Duplicate ads were not counted.

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