Doctor Job Description Templates
Free doctor and physician job description templates: employed, small practice, locum, contractor, and hospital. Credentialing notes. Download as DOCX.
Doctor Job Description Templates
5 free physician templates with credentialing fields. Download as DOCX or copy-paste.
The doctor job description is one most practices copy from a generic template that lists "diagnose and treat patients" and stops there, skipping the part that actually defines this hire: the credential stack a physician needs before they can see an insured patient or write a prescription. A small practice that downloads a thin template still has no idea it must verify a state license, secure DEA registration, confirm board certification, obtain the NPI, bind malpractice coverage, run an NPDB query, and complete payer enrollment that routinely takes months, all before the physician becomes billable.
At FirstHR, we build for small practices that hire without an HR department, and an independent practice making its first physician hire is exactly that. The five templates below cover the role by setting and employment type: employed, small practice, part-time or locum, independent contractor, and hospital or group. Each carries the license, DEA, NPI, board certification, malpractice, and NPDB items as structured fields. Fill in the brackets and post. For the general principles behind any posting, the guide to writing a job description covers the fundamentals.
What Does a Doctor Do?
A doctor, or physician, diagnoses, treats, and helps prevent illness and injury: examining patients, ordering and interpreting diagnostics, prescribing and managing treatment, providing preventive care, and maintaining continuity with a panel of patients. In federal occupational data the general role falls under general internal medicine physicians and the related family medicine category, which frame the diagnosis, treatment, and preventive-care work at the core of the role.
For the employer writing the posting, the useful frame is that the clinical core is constant while the operational shell varies completely by setting: panel and call at an independent practice, wRVU productivity and team-based care in an employed model, defined coverage days for a locum, and a contract scope for a 1099 physician. That is why the templates below differ more in structure than in medicine. And if the hire your practice actually needs next is the clinical team around the physician, the nurse templates and medical assistant templates cover those seats with the same structure.
Doctor Duties and Responsibilities
Doctor duties center on diagnosis and treatment, prevention and patient care, panel continuity, and the documentation and compliance that keep a practice running. The setting shifts the weights, an inpatient rotation versus a steady outpatient panel, but the categories hold. These are the duties grouped the way the templates use them.
A strong posting grounds these in the setting with the numbers attached: manage a panel of roughly 1,800 patients seeing 18 to 22 per day, round on the inpatient unit per a 1-in-5 rotation, document in the named EHR within 48 hours. Physicians read postings the way engineers read specs, screening for the operational facts, panel, volume, call ratio, EHR, before considering the prose, which makes precision a recruiting advantage. For a structured way to scope any role before posting, the guide to defining job responsibilities walks through the process.
Doctor vs Physician vs Specialist
In US hiring, doctor and physician mean the same thing, and naming the role precisely keeps your posting accurate and searchable. Here is how the general terms and the specialties relate.
| Term | Meaning | When to use it |
|---|---|---|
| Doctor | Common term for a physician (MD or DO) | Plain-language postings and broad searches |
| Physician | Formal title for an MD or DO | The precise title most HR systems use |
| Family / Internal Medicine | General physician for a defined population | When you know the practice's focus |
| Specialist | Trained in a specific field | Cardiology, pediatrics, psychiatry, and similar |
If you are hiring for a defined specialty rather than a general physician, use the specialty title and template. The pediatrician job description templates cover children's care, the cardiologist templates cover heart care, the psychiatrist templates cover mental health, and the dermatologist templates cover skin care, each written for that specialty's credentialing and setting.
Which Template Should You Use?
Pick the template by setting and employment type. The clinical core runs through all five, but the compensation structure, the schedule, and the candidates differ enough that the matched version always reads more credibly to physicians. Use this guide to choose.
5 Free Doctor Job Description Templates
Download all five as a single Word document or copy individual templates. Each follows the same structure: practice overview, job summary, key responsibilities, required qualifications, compensation, and how to apply, with license, DEA, NPI, board certification, malpractice, and NPDB items as structured fields. Fill in the brackets and post.
Template 1: General / Employed Physician
The base version: panel-based care, EHR documentation, the call ratio stated, and the credential requirements as structured fields. Start here if no specialized version fits.
Template 2: Small Practice / First Physician Hire
The independent version: a hands-on role, real autonomy, a partnership track, and a built-in note on the credentialing timeline that governs the start date.
Template 3: Part-Time / Locum Tenens Physician
The coverage version: set clinic days or locum blocks, outpatient focus, clean handoffs, and the credentialing lead time built into the start-date math.
Template 4: Independent Contractor Physician (1099)
The 1099 version: contract scope, the physician's own malpractice, and a worker-classification note, since misclassifying an employee as a contractor carries real risk.
Template 5: Hospital / Group Practice Physician
The employed-system version: outpatient plus rounding or call, base-plus-wRVU compensation, system benefits including paid malpractice with tail, and privileges within the credentialing pipeline.
Licensing, Credentialing, and Compliance
Physician hiring runs on a credential stack with no shortcuts, and the posting should name every layer: the state medical license, board certification or eligibility, DEA registration for prescribing, which physicians obtain and renew through the DEA's registration forms and applications, the National Provider Identifier required for billing, malpractice coverage eligibility, and a history query against the National Practitioner Data Bank, the federal repository of malpractice payments and disciplinary actions that hospitals and many practices check as a standard step.
The operational truth small practices learn the hard way is that credentialing is the hiring timeline: primary source verification, privileging where the role rounds, and payer enrollment with every plan the practice bills, the last of which routinely runs 90 to 180 days per payer and gates the date the new physician becomes billable. Compliance layers on top: HIPAA workforce training is due within a reasonable period after onboarding and sooner in stricter states, hiring must stay job-related and neutral since the EEOC prohibits job advertisements that show a preference based on protected characteristics, and a 1099 contractor physician must be classified correctly against the IRS and state tests. Every credential then lives in the employee file with its expiration on a renewal calendar, license, DEA, board cycle, because in medicine the paperwork discipline is the practice's protection. None of this is legal advice; confirm with your state board and an attorney.
Physician Qualifications to Include
Physician qualifications are credential-anchored and verification-heavy, which makes the posting's job precision: every requirement is checkable, and the strong version states each one in the form a candidate can answer with a document.
| Weak requirement | Strong requirement |
|---|---|
| Licensed physician | Active [State] medical license, or clear eligibility to obtain before the start date |
| Board certified | Board certified or board eligible in [specialty], with certification timeline stated for new graduates |
| Prescriptive authority | Active DEA registration and NPI, or eligibility to obtain before start |
| Good standing | Eligible for malpractice coverage and payer credentialing; NPDB history clean or explainable |
| Team player | Comfort documenting in [EHR] within 48 hours and sharing a 1-in-5 call rotation |
Saying board certified or board eligible matters practically: residency graduates are board eligible before they sit the exam, and a posting requiring certification outright excludes the largest pool of available physicians, the finishing residents. Keep every line job-related and neutral throughout, and for the standard sections of a posting, the SHRM job description tools describe a good job description as a plain-language summary of a position's tasks, duties, and responsibilities.
How to Write a Doctor Job Description
A strong physician posting takes about 45 minutes, longer than most roles, because the document does double duty: it specifies a credentialed clinical position and it sells the practice against system recruiting. Here is the process the templates are built around. If this is among your first hires, the small business hiring guide covers the steps around the posting itself.
Doctor Salary
Doctor compensation sits at the top of the wage scale, varies enormously by specialty and setting, and is structured rather than flat, three facts that argue for showing your math in the posting.
The structure matters more than the headline: typical packages run a base salary with productivity compensation tied to work RVUs or collections above a threshold, plus the benefits that function as pay in medicine, malpractice premiums and whether tail coverage is included, CME allowance and days, PTO, retirement, and at independent practices the partnership economics with their buy-in basis and timeline. Pay also splits sharply by specialty, with primary care and pediatrics toward the lower end and procedural and surgical specialties well above the median. A small practice rarely wins a headline-number contest against a health system, and does not need to: the posting that shows its structure lets a candidate compare honestly, and the physicians who value autonomy are reading for exactly that.
Hiring a Doctor for a Small Practice
Health systems hire physicians with recruiters, credentialing departments, and compensation analysts. An independent practice does it with the owner and a practice administrator, for the most consequential and procedurally heavy hire the practice will make. Here is how to write the posting and run the hire for that reality.
From Hiring to Onboarding
The job description is step one, and physician onboarding is credentialing-first by necessity: payer enrollment applications submitted the day the contract signs, the state license, DEA, and NPI confirmed, malpractice bound, the NPDB query completed, hospital privileging where the role rounds, and every credential stored with its expiration date on a renewal calendar, because the start date is governed by the slowest payer, not the calendar preference. Alongside it runs the employment layer every hire requires regardless of specialty: the signed contract, Form I-9 within the first days along with the rest of the new hire paperwork, tax forms, and HIPAA and compliance training documented, the sequence the healthcare onboarding guide structures for clinical settings.
Then the integration that decides the first year: EHR training before the first clinic day, the practice's protocols and referral patterns walked through, a ramped schedule for the first weeks, introductions to staff and the local specialist network, and panel-building support, the practice-level patterns covered in healthcare onboarding best practices. Once you have your offer ready, the offer letter template handles the next step, and the employment contract template carries the formal terms a physician hire requires. FirstHR connects the offer, e-signature paperwork, document storage with credential expiration tracking, training checklists, and the onboarding workflow in one place, built for practices without an HR department, working alongside whatever credentialing service runs your payer enrollment. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does a doctor do?
A doctor, or physician, diagnoses, treats, and helps prevent illness and injury: examining patients, ordering and interpreting diagnostic tests, prescribing medications and treatment, providing preventive care and screenings, counseling patients, referring to specialists, and maintaining continuity with a panel of patients over time. The work and setting shape the role substantially. A general or family physician manages a broad outpatient panel; an employed physician in a hospital or group works within a team-based model with productivity measures; a part-time or locum physician covers defined days; and an independent contractor physician provides services on a contract basis. This page covers the general doctor or physician role and offers templates by setting and employment type, since the clinical core is constant while the structure of the job varies completely.
What is the difference between a doctor and a physician?
In everyday US usage, doctor and physician mean the same thing: a medical professional who holds an MD or DO degree, completed residency, and is licensed to diagnose and treat patients. Doctor is the common term, physician is the formal one, and most HR systems and job boards use physician as the title. Doctor can technically refer to anyone with a doctoral degree, including dentists, podiatrists, and PhDs, but in a hiring context for a medical practice the two are interchangeable. When you write the posting, either term works, though physician is the more precise title for a job description, and it is worth using the formal specialty name when you know it, such as family medicine physician or internal medicine physician, since that is how candidates search.
What should a doctor job description include?
A strong doctor or physician job description includes a clear practice overview, a job summary, key responsibilities, required qualifications and credentials, the employment type, the compensation structure, and how to apply, all matched to the setting you are hiring for. List the clinical duties: diagnosis and treatment, preventive care, diagnostics, prescribing, panel management, EHR documentation, and call. Carry the credential requirements as explicit fields, because they are non-negotiable: MD or DO, board certification or eligibility, an active state medical license, DEA registration, an NPI, malpractice eligibility, and a clean or explainable NPDB history. Match the posting to the setting, since an employed physician, a small-practice hire, a locum, and a 1099 contractor are genuinely different arrangements. Show the compensation as a structure rather than a single number, and note that credentialing governs the real start date.
What credentials does a doctor need to be hired?
The non-negotiable stack: an MD or DO degree, completion of an accredited residency, board certification or board eligibility through the relevant board, an active medical license in the state of practice or clear eligibility to obtain one, DEA registration for prescribing controlled substances, a National Provider Identifier for billing, eligibility for malpractice coverage, and a National Practitioner Data Bank history that is clean or explainable. Most settings also require payer credentialing and enrollment before the physician can bill insured patients, and hospital roles require medical staff privileges. The posting should list these explicitly with board certified or board eligible stated, since new residency graduates are board eligible before they test, and request the credential packet, license numbers, DEA, NPI, CV, and complete work history, at the application or offer stage so credentialing can start immediately.
What is credentialing and why does it matter when hiring a doctor?
Credentialing is the verification and enrollment process that stands between a signed physician and a billable one: primary source verification of medical school and residency, state license confirmation, board certification status, DEA registration, NPI verification, malpractice coverage binding, a National Practitioner Data Bank query for malpractice and disciplinary history, hospital privileging where the role rounds, and payer enrollment with every insurance plan the practice bills. The timeline is the operational fact small practices underestimate: payer enrollment alone routinely runs 90 to 180 days per plan, and a physician who starts before enrollment completes sees patients the practice cannot bill for. The practical sequence: collect the full credential packet at offer, submit payer applications the day the contract signs, track every application with dates, and set the start date around enrollment completion. The posting helps by listing credential requirements explicitly so candidates arrive ready.
How much does a doctor make?
Federal wage data places physicians and surgeons among the highest-paid occupations in the country. The median annual wage was equal to or greater than $239,200 in May 2024, the top of the BLS reporting scale, with about 839,000 physicians and surgeons employed nationally. Pay varies enormously by specialty, with primary care and pediatrics toward the lower end and procedural and surgical specialties well above the median, and by geography, employment model, and productivity. Structure matters as much as the number: typical packages are a base salary, often with productivity compensation tied to work RVUs or collections above a threshold, plus the benefits that function as pay in medicine, malpractice premiums with or without tail coverage, CME allowance and days, PTO, retirement, and at independent practices the partnership economics. Employment of physicians and surgeons is projected to grow about 3 percent through 2034, with roughly 23,600 openings each year.
How do I hire a doctor for a small private practice without an HR department?
Pick the setting template, then compete on the things only an independent practice can offer, stated concretely, and build the credentialing timeline into your plan from the start. First, sell the practice honestly: providers, patient population, community tenure, clinical autonomy, and the partnership track with its timeline, because your posting lands next to hospital offers with sign-on bonuses and the differentiation is specificity. Second, carry the credential requirements as explicit fields, MD or DO, board certified or eligible, state license, DEA, NPI, malpractice, NPDB, and request the credential packet early. Third, treat credentialing as the real timeline: payer enrollment runs 90 to 180 days, so collect the packet at offer, submit applications at signature, and build the start date around enrollment. The templates on this page carry all of this, and the compensation section should show the structure, base, productivity, malpractice and tail terms, rather than a single vague number. None of this is legal advice; confirm with your state board and an attorney.
What happens after I hire a doctor?
Credentialing runs first and longest: payer enrollment applications submitted the day the contract signs, the state license, DEA, and NPI confirmed, malpractice bound, the NPDB query completed, hospital privileging where the role rounds, every credential stored with its expiration date on a renewal calendar, and the start date built around enrollment completion rather than hope. Then the standard employment layer that exists regardless of specialty: the signed contract, Form I-9 within the first days, tax forms, and HIPAA and compliance training documented, with HIPAA training due within a reasonable period after onboarding and sooner in stricter states. Then the integration that decides the first year: EHR training before the first clinic day, the practice's protocols and referral patterns walked through, a ramped schedule for the first weeks, introductions to staff and local specialists, and panel-building support. FirstHR handles the offer, e-signature paperwork, document storage with credential expiration tracking, training checklists, and the onboarding workflow in one place, built for practices without an HR department, alongside the credentialing process your billing or credentialing service runs. Applicant tracking is coming soon to FirstHR.