How to recruit general practitioners in Australia

Healthcare professionals are in highest demand in Australia. There is a shortage of healthcare professionals in Australia since long time. It is indeed a difficult task for healthcare organisations to recruit healthcare professionals.

General practitioners, nurses and specialists are in highest demand. There are only limited number of medical graduates who decide to become GPs. Therefore number of training posts for GP registrars are not filled adequately. This creates massive shortage in terms of local graduates. Australia is highly dependent upon overseas trained doctors to meet growing demand of healthcare needs of the community. Overseas trained doctors (OTDs) are available and interested in working in Australia however there are many rules and regulations from Government which decide where in particular these doctors can work.

According to Section 19AB of Health Insurance Act, all overseas trained doctors have to work in Distribution Priority Areas (DPA) for first 10 years of their initial AHPRA registration. Majority of urban and metropolitan areas of Australia are not DPA therefore it is difficult for OTDs to get Medicare provider number for billing purpose. According to Section 19AA of Health Insurance Act, all non specialist doctors have to enroll in training programs to become eligible for Medicare provider number. These training programs are mostly targeted towards rural and remote areas.

Recruiting a general practitioner is very challenging and time consuming process. Recruiting an overseas trained doctor require various stages of going through AHPRA and Medicare. AHPRA has very strict and time consuming process for OTDs to apply and register as medical practitioner in Australia. Once AHPRA registration is granted, OTDs have to go through Medicare provider number process which needs them to fulfill specific requirements of 19AA and 19AB of Health Insurance Act. General practices in Australia can advertise for their vacancies on general career websites like Seek, Indeed and Jora. As the GPs are in high demand, it is very uncommon for a qualified GP to search on these national career website to find a suitable job. They mostly visit specific healthcare related job classified sites or portals. For example, AusDoc, GP Vacancy and Healthcare Jobs Australia. These sites are very specific and targeted towards healthcare professionals rather than focusing on each and every job seeker in the country.

If you are a practice manager or recruitment consultant wanting to recruit a general practitioner, please consider posting your gp job advertisement on GP Vacancy or Healthcare Jobs Australia or any other healthcare related classified or recruitment sites in Australia.