Nursing shortages dominate the healthcare staffing conversation — understandably, given the scale of the RN gap — but a narrow focus on nursing alone misses where some of the most acute, and most overlooked, hiring pressure actually sits: allied health and physician roles that receive far less attention but face comparably severe structural shortfalls.
How widespread is the allied health shortage, really?
Nearly universal among facilities surveyed. A survey of 1,005 healthcare facilities found 85% report at least moderate shortages of allied health professionals, with radiologic technicians, physical therapists, lab technicians, and occupational therapists named as the highest-demand roles. Facility leaders cited labor shortage (80%), longer time-to-fill (71%), and burnout (46%) as their top workforce challenges (Becker's Hospital Review, citing AMN Healthcare survey). Workforce advocates separately estimate that more than 6.5 million allied health professionals will permanently leave the profession within five years — a scale of exit that dwarfs most facilities' current sourcing capacity (Healthcare Workforce Coalition, "By the Numbers").
Does the shortage extend to physicians and dental providers too?
Yes — HRSA's "State of the U.S. Health Care Workforce 2025" projects a shortage of 141,160 FTE physicians by 2038 across specialties, alongside 33,220 FTE dental hygienists and up to 19,860 FTE general dentists (HRSA, State of the U.S. Health Care Workforce 2025). This confirms the skills gap isn't a nursing-specific phenomenon — it's a systemic pattern across essentially every clinical and allied credential category, from bedside nursing through advanced practice, physician specialties, and oral health.
Why are these particular roles so hard to fill, structurally?
A combination of attrition intent and burnout that's accelerating faster than the pipeline can replace. Nurses reporting they were "very likely" to leave their role jumped from 8% in 2023 to 23% in 2024 — one of the largest single-year jumps in attrition intent on record for the profession — with AACN's 2025 data showing 24% considering leaving and 60% reporting feeling overwhelmed, 53% reporting burnout, across a cross-sectional study of 7,887 nurses (Healthcare Workforce Coalition; AACN Fact Sheet). Among physicians, the picture is comparably stark: 35% indicate they're likely to leave their current roles within five years, and 60% of those say they'd leave clinical practice entirely (Healthcare Workforce Coalition).
Is the pipeline replenishing fast enough to offset this?
No — 42% of new nursing graduates have already considered leaving the field, and 68% of nurses say they don't feel hopeful about the next generation entering the profession (Healthcare Workforce Coalition). That combination — rising attrition intent among the existing workforce and early doubt among incoming graduates — means the skills gap for the hardest-hit roles is likely to widen before it narrows, independent of near-term hiring volume.
What does this mean for how facilities and staffing partners should prioritize?
It argues against a nursing-only sourcing strategy. With 85% of facilities reporting allied-health shortages across dozens of distinct job families — radiology tech, PT, OT, lab tech, and more — a sourcing approach that only scales for RN volume will systematically under-serve the rest of the credentialed workforce a hospital or health system actually needs. Autonomous sourcing that scales horizontally across many niche credential types, rather than requiring a dedicated human sourcer per specialty, directly targets this fragmentation.
Why do radiology, PT, OT, and lab roles specifically lag so far behind nursing in hiring attention?
Largely because nursing's scale and visibility dominate healthcare workforce reporting, even though allied health shortages are comparably severe on a percentage basis. With 85% of facilities reporting at least moderate allied-health shortages across radiologic technology, physical therapy, laboratory science, and occupational therapy, the scale of unmet demand in these categories rivals nursing's — it simply receives a fraction of the public and vendor attention (Becker's Hospital Review). Facility leaders cite labor shortage (80%) and longer time-to-fill (71%) as their top allied-health challenges, nearly identical to the pressures reported for nursing — suggesting the underlying dynamics are similar even though the staffing solutions applied to each category often aren't.
The scale of coming attrition compounds the urgency: workforce advocates estimate more than 6.5 million allied health professionals will permanently leave the profession within five years, a figure large enough that even a modest improvement in sourcing speed and reach across these fragmented specialties would meaningfully offset the coming exit wave (Healthcare Workforce Coalition, By the Numbers).
The credentialing complexity across these specialties compounds the sourcing challenge further, since each allied-health category carries its own licensure and certification requirements — meaning a generic sourcing approach tuned only for RN hiring will systematically miss qualification nuances that matter for radiology, PT, OT, and lab roles specifically.
UPPER's POV: The clinical skills gap isn't confined to nursing, and a sourcing strategy built only around RN volume leaves the long tail of allied-health and specialty-physician roles under-served. UPPER scales sourcing horizontally across credential types — nursing, allied health, and specialty physician roles alike — without requiring a dedicated human sourcer for every niche category.
Key data points
- 85% of healthcare facilities report at least moderate allied health shortages (Becker's Hospital Review).
- More than 6.5 million allied health professionals are estimated to leave the profession within five years (Healthcare Workforce Coalition).
- HRSA projects a shortage of 141,160 FTE physicians by 2038 (HRSA, State of the U.S. Health Care Workforce 2025).
- Nurses reporting they were "very likely" to leave jumped from 8% (2023) to 23% (2024) (Healthcare Workforce Coalition).
- 35% of physicians indicate they are likely to leave their current roles within 5 years (Healthcare Workforce Coalition).
Related: our guide to the best AI recruiting software for healthcare staffing for 2026.