How much does Lakeshore charge to place a clinical or physician hire?

Lakeshore offers four transparent pricing models, all billed as a percentage of first-year salary with a 90-day replacement guarantee and Net 30 payment terms. Contingent is 20% of first-year salary, paid only on placement. Container/Exclusive is 17% with a 20% initiation fee plus 80% on acceptance. Retained is 25% paid in three milestones (8% / 8% / 9%), best for C-suite and hard-to-fill executive roles. RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) is a 10% flat fee with a 12-month minimum and a $1M aggregate salary volume commitment, designed for high-volume hiring. Full pricing detail is published at lakeshoretalentconsulting.com/placement-fees.

How long does it take to fill a clinical role?

Average time-to-fill nationally is 86 days for a registered nurse and 94 days for OR or ICU specialists, per Lakeshore's 2026 Healthcare Staffing Analysis. Lakeshore typically reduces this by 7 to 14 days through proactive sourcing of passive candidates rather than relying on inbound applicants. For physician roles, time-to-fill ranges from 60 to 180 days depending on specialty and geography. Executive searches like CNO and CMO typically take 90 to 120 days.

What is the 90-day replacement guarantee?

If a placed candidate leaves or is terminated within the first 90 days of employment for any reason other than a position elimination or major scope change, Lakeshore replaces the candidate at no additional fee. This applies to all engagement models including Contingent, Container/Exclusive, and Retained. The guarantee is included in every signed agreement.

What clinical roles does Lakeshore recruit for?

Lakeshore recruits across six clinical role categories: Nursing leadership and bedside roles (RN, BSN, MSN, Charge Nurse, Nurse Manager, Director of Nursing, CNO, CNE, CNIO) plus specialty nurses (ER, ICU, NICU, PCU, CCRN, L&D, OR, Med/Surg, Telemetry, Stepdown, PACU, Cath Lab, Behavioral Health), Physicians (hospitalists, surgeons, specialists, primary care, emergency medicine), Advanced Practice Providers (Nurse Practitioners, Physician Assistants, CRNAs, Certified Nurse Midwives, Clinical Nurse Specialists), Allied Health (Physical Therapists, Occupational Therapists, Speech-Language Pathologists, Respiratory Therapists, Radiologic Technologists, Laboratory Technologists), Behavioral Health (Psychiatrists, Psychologists, LCSWs, LPCs, BCBAs), and Healthcare Leadership (CEO, COO, CFO, CMO, CNO, CHRO, VP of Talent Acquisition, Director of Physician Recruitment).

What markets or cities does Lakeshore serve?

Lakeshore serves 20 states across the Southeast, South-Central, and Western United States: Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. The firm is headquartered in Tampa, FL.

How is Lakeshore different from a job board or staffing agency?

Lakeshore is a headhunting partner, not a job board or aggregator. 88% of nurses and 70% of top clinical talent are employed and not actively looking, which means they cannot be reached through Indeed, ZipRecruiter, or LinkedIn job posts. Lakeshore uses LinkedIn Recruiter, Seekout, Juicebox, the NPPES NPI Registry, and direct relationships with professional associations to reach passive candidates that competitors cannot. Founded by Ben Stephen, a former Fortune 25 talent leader at Centene Corporation with 18 years of healthcare TA experience and over $4M in delivered cost savings.

What is the difference between Contingent, Retained, and RPO?

Contingent is best for standard searches where you want to engage multiple vendors and pay only when a hire is made. Lower fee at 20%, no upfront commitment. Retained is best for C-suite or hard-to-fill specialty roles where you want a dedicated recruiter and guaranteed delivery. Higher fee at 25% paid in three milestones, with full search exclusivity and weekly progress updates. RPO (Recruitment Process Outsourcing) is best for organizations with $1M or more in annual base salary hires. Lakeshore embeds as your recruiting function at a flat 10% fee with a 12-month minimum engagement, dramatically cheaper than per-placement fees once you hit volume.

Does Lakeshore work with physician practices and not just hospitals?

Yes. Lakeshore operates three integrated service lines for physician practices in addition to hospital recruiting. Business Development covers referral network building, growth strategy consulting, payer contract optimization, new patient acquisition, and operational efficiency reviews. Marketing covers local SEO, reputation management, website optimization, social media management, patient engagement campaigns, and targeted digital advertising, with pricing tiers from $1,000 to $5,000 per month plus a 10% management fee. Anesthesia Revenue Cycle Solutions covers B2B billing, coding, credentialing, and revenue cycle management for anesthesia groups, CRNA practices, and pain management practices, delivered in partnership with ARCS Billing.

How does Lakeshore's anesthesia revenue cycle service compare to ABC, Fusion, or Ventra?

Lakeshore's anesthesia revenue cycle solutions are delivered in partnership with ARCS Billing as a focused, mid-market alternative to Anesthesia Business Consultants (ABC/Coronis), Fusion Anesthesia Solutions, and Ventra Health. The structure is Anti-Kickback Statute compliant, with compensation based on commercial cases only. Services cover anesthesia billing, coding, credentialing, and full revenue cycle management. Ideal for anesthesia groups, CRNA practices, and pain management groups looking for a more responsive partner than the large national billing companies.

What is the actual cost of leaving a clinical position unfilled?

According to Lakeshore Talent Consulting's 2026 Healthcare Staffing Analysis, an unfilled RN position costs $100,000 to $130,000 per quarter when accounting for overtime, agency spend, and lost reimbursement. Annual cost per unfilled nursing position averages $46,100. For a 300-bed hospital with 800 nurses at the national 9.6% vacancy rate, that is roughly 77 open positions translating to $7.7 million to $10 million in quarterly revenue bleed. By specialty, revenue per orthopedic surgeon is $3.3 million per year, per cardiologist $2.4 million per year, and per hospitalist $1.5 million per year.

Quality of Hire & The Passive Candidate Gap

Benu Stephen
Mar 13
2 min read

Updated: Apr 16

88% of registered nurses are currently employed. That means only 12% of the nursing workforce is actively looking for a job at any given time. If your recruiting strategy relies on job boards alone, you're fishing in the smallest possible pond. And competing with every other health system doing the same thing.

Key Stats

88% of RNs are currently employed (BLS)
23.8% first-year RN turnover rate (NSI 2026)
$60,090 average cost per RN turnover (NSI 2026)
73% of all candidates are passive, meaning they're open to opportunity but not actively searching (LinkedIn)

The Talent Pool You're Missing

The nursing workforce splits into two pools. The visible pool, about 12%, consists of active job seekers on Indeed, LinkedIn, and job boards. They're easy to reach but also the most picked-over candidates in the market. The hidden pool, the remaining 88%, are employed nurses who aren't actively looking but would consider the right opportunity if it came to them directly. Passive candidates tend to be more experienced, more stable, and less likely to leave within the first year. They're also the ones your competitors can't find through job postings alone.

Active vs. Passive: How They Compare

Source: Active candidates come from job boards; passive candidates come through direct outreach, referrals, and recruiter networks.
Experience: Active pool skews toward new grads and those between roles; passive pool includes seasoned nurses with specialty certifications.
Retention: 23.8% first-year turnover for active hires vs. 10–14% for passive placements.
Competition: Every hospital is bidding on the same 12%; virtually no competition for the 88% hidden pool.

The Cost of a Bad Hire

When you hire from a shallow pool, quality suffers. A bad nursing hire doesn't just cost you the $60,090 turnover figure. It also includes onboarding and training investment ($12,000–$18,000), reduced unit productivity during ramp-up (8–12 weeks), overtime burden on remaining staff during the gap, and a second round of recruiting costs when the hire leaves within a year.

The ROI Math: Reducing first-year turnover from 22% to 12% on 40 annual hires saves roughly $244,000 in re-hire costs alone. That's before accounting for productivity, morale, and patient care improvements.

Your next hire isn't on a job board.

88% of qualified nurses are working somewhere else right now. They're not reading your job posts. Send me one role you've been struggling to fill and I'll run a passive-candidate pull using the same sourcing process I use for paying clients. You'll see what your pipeline could actually look like.

Send the role: ben@lakeshoretalentconsulting.com

Sources: NSI Nursing Solutions 2024 Report, Bureau of Labor Statistics, LinkedIn Talent Solutions, SHRM.

LAKESHORE TALENT CONSULTING

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