If you’re considering a career in rural medicine, you have important questions. And when you search for answers, the results can be confusing. There are many misunderstandings throughout the medical community about what it’s like to be a rural doctor. From hospital resources and professional support to compensation and employment structure, it can be difficult to land on clear and reliable information ..read more

Most hospitalist staffing models cover at least one need for rural hospitals, but few can cover all your community’s needs. And the list of needs is long when it comes to staffing in rural areas – from recruitment and education to management and retention ..read more

Rural hospitals have been historically underserved. About 20% of the US population lives in rural communities, and only 11% of physicians practice rural medicine. Physician shortages in rural areas don’t surprise the providers who have worked there. It’s a demanding job. But ask one of these physicians why they practice rural medicine, and you’ll soon realize the benefits far outweigh the challenges ..read more

Physician staffing in rural medicine is a unique challenge. Many administrators begin with a traditional recruiting path, trying to find physicians who will relocate or a local doc willing to provide call coverage ..read more

https://ruralphysiciansgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/RPG-Podcast-Episode-1-Final_mixdown-upload.mp3 In this episode, Cameron Byers, PA-C shares insight on the most common challenges facing critical access and rural community hospitals across the country. Specifically, Cameron discusses his firsthand experience of some of these challenges and how they affect both the hospital and patients.  ..read more

As the population continues to age, hospitals everywhere have been balancing their needs with the ongoing demand for providers. With COVID-19 changing the landscape of healthcare this year and last, provider recruiting will never be the same. We're seeing a serious supply shortage for healthcare workers in rural areas and a significant uptick in demand that's not slowing down.  In the last 40 years, our team has helped place over 5,000 physicians in rural hospitals not only helping to improve patient care, but help healthcare systems remain independent and better serve their community. I ..read more

I reflect on the last year, I am still struggling to come to the realization 2020 is over. The year started out as any other year, high hopes, big plans, defined goals…then March hit. Almost overnight, everything changed, for me time stopped. The world faced an unprecedented illness that very few knew anything about. So many were faced with fear, destruction, uncertainty, loss, and understanding what in life is valuable, truly valuable. In business, we ask ourselves this question frequently. Anytime we are faced with making a financial decision, we ask, “What is the ROI? Where is the value? D ..read more

As a healthcare leader (and a human), I've made some good decisions, but I've also had my fair share of learning opportunities, what others might call mistakes! In my defense, some of those mistakes were based on ideas that sounded intelligent in theory, but that didn’t work in practice. When it comes to leading rural healthcare teams, there are a lot of things in theory that sound good as well - but don't necessarily play out like they're supposed to. In order to bring value and share some of those valuable leadership lessons, I teed up 5 steps that I used when aligning a team around organiz ..read more

As a former Administrator and one of the first RPG employees, I am very proud to say that 95% of our hospital partnerships have continued without interruption… some over a decade ..read more

As a single mother of three children, I struggled with the challenges of taking care of my family while also trying to further my career as a physician. I was constantly on-call and missing wrestling tournaments or softball games. As my kids got older, the time demands of juggling sports practices and games grew exponentially, and I felt like I was being forced to choose between prioritizing my family or prioritizing my career ..read more