A nationwide physician-recruiting firm has opened an office in the Anchorage area to help dispel myths about life in Alaska and strengthen its credibility in the state.
"I think so often, people in the Lower 48, all they know about Alaska is what they've seen on reality TV shows," said J.B. Tanner, a senior recruiting executive at Merritt Hawkins and Associates.
Merritt Hawkins, marketed as the country's largest physician search firm, has worked in Alaska for years from its offices in California and Texas. It's brought about 50 permanent physicians and midlevel providers to hospitals, clinics and private health care groups in communities from Barrow to Anchorage and Juneau, Tanner said.
This fall, the company hired Kimberly Adams to lead its branch in Alaska, based out of her home in Girdwood. Adams moved to Alaska from Delaware three years ago to recruit doctors for an Indian Health Service facility in Anchorage. Now she partners with health care facilities in Alaska that pay Merritt Hawkins to entice physicians to travel to the Last Frontier.
So, Adams said, when potential recruits ask Merritt Hawkins if its staff would ever move to Alaska, she can say she already has.
"There is life in Alaska," she said. "There is civilization, and there's a fair amount of modern medicine."
Recruitment and retention is a concern across Alaska's public health workforce, according to a report from the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services released Oct. 1. The report found that because of the aging workforce, a lot of the "expertise" in the field is leaving and will have to be replaced with new hires.
"Getting professional expertise out to smaller communities is challenging," the report says.
In 2012, a study by the Alaska Center for Rural Health at the University of Alaska Anchorage found that there were 47 vacant positions for general practitioners and family physicians in rural Alaska and 18 unfilled positions in urban areas.
A study by the Robert Graham Center concluded that between 2010 and 2030, an additional 237 primary care physicians would have to be hired in Alaska to maintain current utilization rates.
Tom Hudgins, senior marketing consultant for Merritt Hawkins, said he expects Alaska's demand for recruiting services to sustain the company's one-person office. "I wouldn't be surprised if we add another one because there's so much business up there," he added.
Merritt Hawkins recently began working with the Alaska Veterans Affairs Healthcare System to recruit staff for its Anchorage, Fairbanks and Wasilla clinics, said Samuel Hudson, a spokesman for the Alaska VA Healthcare System.
Katy Branch, former director of UAA's Alaska Center for Rural Health, said health care providers vary in their efforts to recruit physicians. Occasionally the duty falls to the chief medical officer; other times the facility has an internal recruiter or uses an Outside firm.
Branch said the office in Girdwood makes Merritt Hawkins, as far as she can tell, the only Outside firm that recruits permanent physicians to open an office in Alaska.
"I think it's better that they have a branch in Alaska when they're working outside of Alaska," she said. "Hopefully their staff will know and love Alaska like we do and know what to recruit for to get health care providers to stay."
Branch identified some of the largest barriers to retention as social and geographic isolation and spousal satisfaction.
Plus, she said, the cost of recruitment for health care facilities is high, especially when it entails flying providers and their families to Alaska simply for an initial visit.
According to a 2006 study by the Alaska Center for Rural Health, the average cost-per-recruit for a physician totaled $70,704 and $25,652 for a midlevel provider.
Hudgins said that Merritt Hawkins charges an average of about $26,000 for a search -- though the price varies facility to facility.
With Adams in the Anchorage area, Tanner said, she can greet the recruits at the airport, show them around the city and "really give them that red-carpet treatment."