A look at hospitalist turnover: Who’s coming and who’s going?

HOW IS HOSPITALIST turnover affecting hospitalist groups? While nearly all are bringing in more hospitalists than they’re losing, academic practices seem to be adding—and losing—more hospitalists than their nonacademic counterparts.

Overall, adult hospitalists responding to our annual survey reported that the groups they worked at brought in 3.3 hospitalists in the previous year and that 2.7 left those groups. The numbers were lower for pediatric hospitalists, where groups hired 1.7 hospitalists but lost 1.2.

Nonacademic hospitalists told us that their groups hired 2.9 hospitalists and lost 2.4. Academic hospitalists said the groups they worked for hired 4.5 and lost 3.7.

View data on hospitalist turnover by the type of employer hospitalists work for, and a similar trend emerges. Hospitalists working for medical schools and universities reported that their groups hired 6.5 hospitalists and lost 5.2. That’s the largest number of hospitalists coming and going reported by our respondents.

Hospitalists working for hospitals, by comparison, reported that their groups hired 3.3 hospitalists and lost 2.7 in the previous year. Those are the same numbers as the mean.

Hospitalists working for national hospitalist management companies bucked the trend a little by losing more hospitalists than they brought in. According to respondents to our survey who work for national management companies, those groups hired 2.4 hospitalists but lost 2.7.

By region, the area with the highest level of churn is also the area that’s home to a large number of academic medical centers. Hospitalists working at hospitalist groups in the Northeast said the groups they worked for hired 4.4 hospitalists and lost 3.6.

Finally, in the Southwest, hospitalists said that their groups brought in the same number of new hospitalists that they lost: 2.5.

For more on hospitalist careers, check out our 2023 Compensation & Career guide here.