If you want to make money, start physician recruiting.
The way it works is basically you have to cold call hospitals or do mailers to get contracts signed that you'll recruit physicians for the hospital or practice for a fee, but after a couple of months you can have plenty of hospitals and practices as clients and stop looking for clients, and just work with the ones that you currently have, since they're always looking for physicians for them or for a practice in town. You need a contract with the hospital or practice before you start sending them cv's, assuming of course that your candidate is interested in the position. The arrangement can be either a contingency or retained basis. On a contingency search, they pay the fee only if they hire a candidate whose cv you sent, and practices may sometimes be working with more than 1 recruiter on their contingency searches. On a retained search, they pay some money upfront and the rest when they hire a candidate whose cv you sent, so they only work with 1 recruiter. Most practices don't like to work with recruiters who work on a retained basis, since they don't want to get burned if you don't find them a physician. It's pretty easy to get clients and job orders, unless you're trying to get clients in NYC, LA, San Francisco, or Chicago where the market is saturated with physicians, so most of the time, they don't really need to pay a fee to find them a physician. If you do try and go after clients in these major cities, you better have a really good candidate for them, because they're usually picky on who they hire. The hard part is trying to find the right candidate for your client, especially in fields like cardiology, where there is a shortage. To get candidates, you can do mailers, advertise on medical websites and other publications, and get referrals from current candidates.
Even though it's tough to get clients in the major cities, like the ones that I mentioned above, these cities and when you're near any city, pay less than rural areas. So if you have a candidate that is only concerned about the money, you have to get clients in rural areas, which is not hard to do. Rural areas pay more because they are desperate for help and have a shortage of physicians, and their insurance reimbursements are higher than the cities. So for the same procedure in a rural vs. a city area, the rural physician gets paid more on that procedure, since the insurance companies are not trying to negotiate their rates lower because there might be 1 or a few physicians that cover a huge area, instead of hundreds in the cities or suburbs. So in the city, if you don't want to lower your rates, the insurance companies will not put you in their network of providers, and you don't get the free advertising. For example, I have one client near D.C. looking for a cardiologist that is only willing to pay a salary of 200k, but then I have another client in rural Illinois, 3 hours south of Chicago, also looking for a cardiologist, but they are willing to pay a salary of 400k. Other times, you get candidates that don't care about the money, they just want to live near a city. As long as it's not one of the above major cities that I mentioned (although possible, but tough unless you have a really good candidate), you can get clients in the suburbs of those cities, small to medium size cities and their suburbs, and rural areas of the country, and pitch those candidates those job orders that you get. It can be quite lucrative for sure. Average fee for a cardiology placement is $28,000, and it's really not that hard to do 8-10 placements a year, so making mid-high 200's is definitely possible, and some people make alot more. And best of all, you can do it from home if you want and not have to deal with rush hour traffic.
The way it works is basically you have to cold call hospitals or do mailers to get contracts signed that you'll recruit physicians for the hospital or practice for a fee, but after a couple of months you can have plenty of hospitals and practices as clients and stop looking for clients, and just work with the ones that you currently have, since they're always looking for physicians for them or for a practice in town. You need a contract with the hospital or practice before you start sending them cv's, assuming of course that your candidate is interested in the position. The arrangement can be either a contingency or retained basis. On a contingency search, they pay the fee only if they hire a candidate whose cv you sent, and practices may sometimes be working with more than 1 recruiter on their contingency searches. On a retained search, they pay some money upfront and the rest when they hire a candidate whose cv you sent, so they only work with 1 recruiter. Most practices don't like to work with recruiters who work on a retained basis, since they don't want to get burned if you don't find them a physician. It's pretty easy to get clients and job orders, unless you're trying to get clients in NYC, LA, San Francisco, or Chicago where the market is saturated with physicians, so most of the time, they don't really need to pay a fee to find them a physician. If you do try and go after clients in these major cities, you better have a really good candidate for them, because they're usually picky on who they hire. The hard part is trying to find the right candidate for your client, especially in fields like cardiology, where there is a shortage. To get candidates, you can do mailers, advertise on medical websites and other publications, and get referrals from current candidates.
Even though it's tough to get clients in the major cities, like the ones that I mentioned above, these cities and when you're near any city, pay less than rural areas. So if you have a candidate that is only concerned about the money, you have to get clients in rural areas, which is not hard to do. Rural areas pay more because they are desperate for help and have a shortage of physicians, and their insurance reimbursements are higher than the cities. So for the same procedure in a rural vs. a city area, the rural physician gets paid more on that procedure, since the insurance companies are not trying to negotiate their rates lower because there might be 1 or a few physicians that cover a huge area, instead of hundreds in the cities or suburbs. So in the city, if you don't want to lower your rates, the insurance companies will not put you in their network of providers, and you don't get the free advertising. For example, I have one client near D.C. looking for a cardiologist that is only willing to pay a salary of 200k, but then I have another client in rural Illinois, 3 hours south of Chicago, also looking for a cardiologist, but they are willing to pay a salary of 400k. Other times, you get candidates that don't care about the money, they just want to live near a city. As long as it's not one of the above major cities that I mentioned (although possible, but tough unless you have a really good candidate), you can get clients in the suburbs of those cities, small to medium size cities and their suburbs, and rural areas of the country, and pitch those candidates those job orders that you get. It can be quite lucrative for sure. Average fee for a cardiology placement is $28,000, and it's really not that hard to do 8-10 placements a year, so making mid-high 200's is definitely possible, and some people make alot more. And best of all, you can do it from home if you want and not have to deal with rush hour traffic.