WHEN IT COMES to call coverage, nearly half of hospitalists take call. But that number goes much higher—and lower—depending on where hospitalists work and for whom.
According to data from our survey, 44.2% of all adult hospitalists said they take call, compared to 65.1% of pediatric hospitalists. That number was higher for academic hospitalists—52.5%—than nonacademics (41.5%).
Among hospitalists who treat adults, 20.5% said they worked long/weekend call, while 18.5% worked short call, or call after a regular shift. A smaller number—13.7%—took call from home, and 6.8% had a call room.
Here are other differences in call coverage for hospitalists:
Call coverage by employer type
Among hospitalists working for local groups, 62.0% reported taking call. The number was lowest for hospitalists who work for hospitals: 39.4%. (See the chart below for more on differences in call coverage patterns based on employer type.)
Call by geographic region
Hospitalist call coverage showed significant variation based on where physicians work. In the Southwest, for example, 63.0% said they took call.
That number was lower among hospitalists in the Midwest (42.2%) and the Mountain region (48.5%), but it really plummeted in two other regions.
Hospitalists in the Northeast were least likely to take call coverage. Only 32.5% reported taking call, presumably because of residents covering for them at the large number of teaching hospitals in that part of the country.
Hospitalists in the Pacific region also reported lower numbers taking call: Only 37.5% said they took call.
Call by hospital/group size
As for the size of hospitals and physician groups where hospitalists work, bigger seems to be better in terms of call coverage.
At hospitals with under 100 beds, for example, 54.7% of hospitalists said they took call. At hospitals with 100-249 beds, that percentage dropped to 44.4%. And for hospitals with 250-500 beds, that figure fell to 41.8%.
We found a similar trend related to the size of hospitalist groups. In groups with one to nine hospitalists, for example, 63.9% of survey respondents said they took call. For groups with 10 to 20 hospitalists, that percentage dropped to 41.6%. And for groups with more than 50, it fell to 22.2%.
Effect on career satisfaction
Our survey data found that call doesn’t seem to be a big career dissatisfier among hospitalists.
Among survey respondents who said they’re very satisfied with their careers as a hospitalist, for example, 43.7% took call. Among hospitalists who said they’re dissatisfied, fewer—37%—said they took call.
In another section of our survey, hospitalists told us that they didn’t view call as a major dissatisfier. When we asked hospitalists to rank factors that are most important to their career satisfaction, two-thirds chose factors like compensation and work schedule. But only 21% chose night call as a factor.
How many hospitalists take some type of call?
• Hospital/hospital corp.: 39.4%
• Local hosp. group: 62.0%
• Multispecialty/PC group: 52.5%
• Nat. hosp. mgmt. co.: 53.5%
• University/med. school: 50.0%
How many hospitalists take long/weekend call?
• Hospital/hospital corp.: 18.6%
• Local hosp. group: 34.0%
• Multispecialty/PC group: 25.0%
• Nat. hosp. mgmt. co.: 22.5%
• University/med. school: 22.0%
VIEW DATA ON HOSPITALIST PAY from both the 2024 and the 2023 Today’s Hospitalist Compensation & Career Surveys. Our annual surveys examine how hospitalist compensation is affected by factors such as the type of patients hospitalists treat, the number of shifts they work, the number of patients they see per shift and more.
