Harnessing AMA Data to Accelerate Your Physician Recruitment Success
When it comes to physician recruitment marketing, precision isn’t just a goal — it’s a necessity. To effectively connect with the right candidates and fill critical positions faster, accuracy is critical. Without it, your job postings may get lost, your recruitment budget could be wasted, and your time-to-hire will likely fall short. Success in medical recruitment hinges on the quality of your data, and the American Medical Association (AMA) Physician Professional Data™ (AMA–Physician Professional Database) serves as the most reliable source for authenticated HCP data.
Using AMA data is essential for gaining a deeper understanding of your ideal candidates.
This resource empowers you to create campaigns that not only reach physicians but also resonate with their career goals and location preferences. This post will guide you on leveraging this powerful tool to enhance your candidate segmentation, personalize your recruitment outreach, and achieve meaningful results. We are here to help you execute your recruitment strategies with confidence.
What is the AMA Physician Professional Data?
The AMA–Physician Professional Database (aka: AMA Physician Masterfile) is the most comprehensive and trusted database of physicians in the United States. It contains detailed, verified information on over 1.4 million physicians, residents, fellows and medical students. This resource goes beyond a mere list of names; it offers a dynamic, multifaceted view of the physician landscape.
Did You Know?
Established in 1906, the AMA–Physician Professional Database is continuously updated through direct feeds from medical schools, hospitals, licensing boards and physicians. This ensures the data is not only accurate but also current — a crucial aspect in an industry where professionals frequently change roles, specialties and locations.
The AMA–Physician Professional Database includes much more than basic contact information. It provides essential data points for sophisticated recruitment marketing, including:
Professional Details: Medical school, graduation year, and specialty
Practice Information: Primary and secondary practice locations, practice type, and hospital affiliations
Licensure Status: State licenses and board certifications
This level of detail transforms your recruitment marketing from guesswork to a data-driven strategy, ensuring your job opportunities reach the candidates most likely to respond.
The Power of Precision: Segmenting Your Target Candidates with AMA Data
Effective recruitment marketing begins with segmentation. Treating all physicians as potential candidates often leads to poor response rates. A job opportunity tailored for a cardiologist in a large urban hospital will not resonate with a family physician in a rural private practice. AMA data provides the granular detail needed to build precise, effective candidate segments, empowering you to take control of your recruitment efforts.
Specialty-Based Segmentation
The most fundamental way to segment potential candidates is by specialty. The AMA–Physician Professional Database enables you to identify physicians based on their primary and secondary specialties. Are you hiring for an oncology position? Direct your recruitment efforts toward oncologists and hematologists. Need to fill a pediatric role? Filter for board-certified pediatricians.
This segmentation goes beyond broad categories; you can drill down into subspecialties to identify niche groups, such as pediatric cardiologists or neuro-oncologists. This precision ensures your job opportunities are relevant to their specific clinical expertise, increasing engagement and application rates.
Geographic and Practice-Based Segmentation
Where a physician currently practices — and where they have ties — is crucial for successful recruitment. AMA data allows you to segment by:
State and Zip Code: Target professionals in specific regions for local recruitment or identify candidates in neighboring markets
Practice Type: Differentiate between physicians in office-based practices, hospital staff positions, research or academic institutions to match your opportunity type
Hospital Affiliation: Identify physicians at competing facilities or those affiliated with specific hospital systems
Group Practice Affiliation: Reach physicians within group practices who may be seeking new opportunities
For example, a hospital recruiter looking to hire a hospitalist in Phoenix can use the AMA–Physician Professional Database to identify all hospitalists currently practicing within a 200-mile radius. This approach creates a highly targeted candidate pool for outreach, ensuring that recruitment efforts focus on the physicians most likely to consider relocating to or commuting to the position.
Location Ties: The Secret to Recruitment Success
According to MMS research, 82% of physicians have ties to a location when choosing a new job. This insight is critical for successful recruitment marketing. With AMA data, you can segment candidates by:
State of Birth
Medical School Location
Residency Training Location
State of Licensure
Career-Stage Segmentation
Understanding a physician’s career stage can unlock powerful recruitment opportunities. With AMA data, you can segment by:
Years in Practice: Target early-career physicians seeking growth opportunities or experienced physicians looking for stability
Final-Year Residents: Engage graduating residents before they enter their first practice position
Fellowship Completion: Identify fellowship-trained specialists who are about to enter the job market
Executing with Impact: Real-World
Applications of AMA Data for Medical Recruitment
Great data only holds value when put into action. Here are ways to use the AMA–Physician Professional Database to accelerate your hiring process and improve candidate quality across your recruitment marketing initiatives.
Elevate Physician Recruitment Campaigns
Medical recruiters must connect with physicians who are actively seeking opportunities or may be open to better positions. AMA data facilitates this connection with precision.
For example, if your hospital needs to hire a fellowship-trained interventional cardiologist, you can use the AMA–Physician Professional Database to target cardiologists who completed fellowship training within the past 3–5 years and have ties to your region through birth, medical school, or residency training.
Additionally, by understanding a physician’s specialty, subspecialty, and location ties, you can personalize email campaigns with job opportunities that align with their career trajectory and personal preferences. For instance, promoting a cardiology position in Denver to a cardiologist who completed medical school at the University of Colorado demonstrates an understanding of their potential interest in returning to the region, builds credibility, and increases the likelihood of an application.
Target Active Job Seekers And Passive Candidates
A study found that 94% of physicians want to receive job opportunity information through email. AMA data enables you to reach both active job seekers and passive candidates who may be open to the right opportunity. You can:
Promote urgent openings to final-year residents who are actively seeking their first positions
Reach mid-career physicians with specialized opportunities that offer advancement or better work-life balance
Target physicians in specific geographic areas with recruitment campaigns highlighting your community, facility and benefits
Identify physicians who recently completed board certification, signaling career progression
Build Multi-Touch Recruitment Campaigns
The detailed professional information in the AMA–Physician Professional Database enables sophisticated multitouch campaigns that continue to reach potential candidates. You can:
Send initial job opportunity announcements to broad specialty segments
Follow up with targeted messages highlighting location benefits for candidates with geographic ties
Reach nonresponders with alternative positions that may better fit their career stage or interests
Retarget candidates who expressed interest in previous opportunities when new positions become available
By leveraging AMA data across email, direct mail and social media campaigns, medical recruiters can create cohesive recruitment strategies that engage candidates where they are and guide them toward opportunities that advance their careers.
In the competitive medical recruitment landscape, connecting with the right candidates at the right time with the right opportunities is essential for reducing time-to-hire and improving candidate quality. The AMA–Physician Professional Database provides medical recruiters with the most comprehensive, accurate, and current information available to make those connections effectively.
From specialty-based segmentation to location-tie targeting, AMA data transforms recruitment marketing from generic job postings to precision candidate engagement. By leveraging this powerful resource, you can ensure your opportunities reach the physicians most likely to apply, reducing hiring cycles, improving candidate fit, and ultimately building stronger healthcare teams.
Ready to accelerate your physician recruitment with AMA data?
Contact MMS today to learn how we can help you connect directly with your ideal candidates and achieve meaningful results.
Get Started Now
Contact us to take the next step in enhancing your recruitment outreach. Deliver your message. Exceed your goals. Partner with MMS to ensure your success.