Top Healthcare Recruiting Firms in 2026: An Honest Comparison
Search for healthcare recruiting firms and you get travel nurse agencies, locum tenens companies, physician search firms, and executive recruiters on one page, as if they sold the same thing. They do not. Here is the market sorted by what you are actually buying, who owns each firm, how it gets paid, and which one fits which problem, including the ones we would send you to instead of us.
One of the firms on this list wrote it, so read it with that in mind. The aim is a sorting guide: before you request proposals, know which kind of company solves the problem you have, because a travel nurse program and a physician search are bought on different terms from different firms, and the largest companies will happily sell you either. Company facts are as each firm describes itself publicly and as the trade press reported them at the time of writing, November 2026; terms change and vary by engagement, so confirm them before you compare.
Three purchases, not one
“Healthcare recruiting firm” covers three different businesses, and most lists mix them.
- Staffing supplies clinicians who stay the agency's employees or contractors: travel nurses on thirteen-week contracts, locum tenens physicians by the day, allied health professionals, per diem nurses. You pay an hourly or daily bill rate and the engagement ends when the need does. This is where the money in the industry is: the largest firms in this article are staffing companies.
- Permanent recruitment finds a clinician who joins your payroll. The fee is a one-time percentage of first-year compensation; whether it is owed only on a hire or paid as the search runs is the retained-versus-contingency question, which our guide to the two models covers.
- Executive search is retained recruitment for leaders: chief medical officers, department chairs, nursing executives, deans. A committee process, a defined methodology, and a fee paid whether or not the search closes.
Several of the largest companies sell all three under different brands. That is convenient, and it carries one conflict worth naming: a company earning an hourly margin on a locum or a travel nurse has less reason to end that assignment with a permanent hire. It is manageable, but only if the conversion terms are in writing before the first assignment starts.
How big each one is
Staffing Industry Analysts, the trade research firm, publishes the standard ranking. Its 2026 report puts the 91 largest U.S. healthcare staffing firms at $33 billion of 2025 revenue, about 86 percent of the market. Aya Healthcare led for the fifth year with 16.3 percent of the market, followed by CHG Healthcare at 7.4 percent, Jackson Healthcare at 6.6, AMN Healthcare at 5.6, and Medical Solutions at 4.8. Two things that ranking does not tell you: it measures temporary staffing, where the volumes are, so it says little about who is best at a permanent search; and the order has changed, with AMN, the long-time leader, now fourth after the travel-nurse boom of the pandemic years reshuffled the field. One deal that did not happen also matters: Aya's agreement to buy Cross Country Healthcare, announced at $615 million in December 2024, was terminated in December 2025 after the Federal Trade Commission raised competition concerns, so Cross Country remains an independent public company.
The staffing companies
| Firm | Ownership | What it sells | Strongest at | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aya Healthcare | Privately held (San Diego) | Travel nursing, allied health, locum tenens, and managed workforce programs | Scale: the largest healthcare staffing firm in the country, with about a sixth of the market | Health systems that run hundreds of contract nurses through one program |
| CHG Healthcare (CompHealth, Weatherby, RNnetwork) | Privately held (Utah) | Locum tenens, permanent physician and advanced practice placement, travel nursing | The largest locum tenens bench in the market, with permanent placement on the same account | Organizations covering a physician vacancy now while a permanent search runs |
| Jackson Healthcare (Jackson Physician Search, LocumTenens.com, Jackson Nurse Professionals) | Privately held, family-owned (Alpharetta, Georgia) | Locum tenens, physician search, nurse and therapy staffing | Hospital physician search, including rural and community hospitals, alongside locums from a sibling company | Hospitals that want a large firm with a relationship model and the option of a retained search |
| AMN Healthcare (Merritt Hawkins, B.E. Smith) | Publicly traded, NYSE: AMN (Dallas) | Travel nursing, allied, locum tenens, retained physician search, interim leadership, managed services | Breadth: every clinical and leadership category under one vendor, and the most-cited physician compensation research | Systems that want one contract covering staffing, search, and interim executives |
| Medical Solutions | Private equity (Centerbridge Partners and CDPQ, since 2021) (Omaha) | Travel nursing, allied health, workforce programs | Nurse staffing at scale, fifth-largest in the country | Hospitals running a travel nurse program that want an alternative to the top two |
| Cross Country Healthcare (Cejka Search) | Publicly traded, Nasdaq: CCRN (Boca Raton, Florida) | Travel nursing, allied, locum tenens, and retained physician and executive search through Cejka | Academic and large-system relationships; executive and physician-leader search | Department chair, chief medical officer, and faculty searches, and systems already on its staffing programs |
| Supplemental Health Care, Amergis, Health Carousel | PE-backed (Vistria and Apollo); privately held (formerly Maxim's staffing arm); privately held (Cincinnati) | Travel nursing, allied, school and behavioral health staffing; international nurse recruitment (Health Carousel) | Specific lanes: schools and home health, per diem nursing, and a pipeline of internationally educated nurses | Buyers whose need sits in one of those lanes rather than a general program |
Aya Healthcare
The largest healthcare staffing company in the country and privately held, based in San Diego. Aya built its position in travel nursing and now sells the full workforce program: a vendor-management platform, managed services, allied health, and locum tenens. For a health system moving hundreds of contract nurses through one program, this is the scale buy. It is not a permanent recruiting firm, and its proposed purchase of Cross Country, which would have combined the first and one of the largest public competitors, was abandoned in December 2025.
CHG Healthcare
Privately held and Utah-based, with CompHealth, Weatherby Healthcare, and RNnetwork under one roof. On the staffing side this is the deepest locum tenens bench in the country, across physicians and advanced practice, with travel nursing through RNnetwork. CompHealth also places permanent physicians, which makes CHG the clearest case of the one-account model: the locum covering your vacancy and the recruiter filling it can sit in the same company. Get the conversion fee in writing before the locum's first day.
Jackson Healthcare
A family of companies rather than one brand: LocumTenens.com for interim physicians and advanced practice, Jackson Nurse Professionals for travel nursing, Jackson Therapy Partners for allied health, and Jackson Physician Search for permanent search. Family-owned and privately held, which is unusual at this size and shows in how long its account people stay. Hospitals that want locum coverage and a permanent search from one group without a public-company contract tend to land here.
AMN Healthcare
The only publicly traded company in the top five, and the one that sells every category: travel nursing, allied health, locum tenens, managed services and vendor management, interim executives through B.E. Smith, and retained physician search through Merritt Hawkins. AMN was the industry's largest firm for years before the pandemic-era travel nurse surge lifted Aya past it. For a system that wants a single master agreement covering nurses, locums, searches, and an interim CFO, it is the obvious call; the price is standardized terms and account teams sized for that scale.
Medical Solutions
Omaha-based and owned by private equity (Centerbridge Partners and the Quebec pension fund CDPQ bought it in 2021). The fifth-largest firm, built on travel nursing and allied health, and a common second vendor for hospitals that do not want their whole travel program with one of the top two.
Cross Country Healthcare
Publicly traded and based in Boca Raton, with a travel nursing business that dates to the 1980s, allied health, locum tenens, and Cejka Search for retained physician-leader and executive searches. Its year was defined by a deal that did not close: Aya agreed to buy it in December 2024, the Federal Trade Commission raised competition concerns, and the agreement was terminated in December 2025. For buyers that means the second-largest public staffing company is still bidding against the first, which is good news for your bill rates.
Supplemental Health Care, Amergis, Health Carousel
Three large firms with distinct lanes. Supplemental Health Care, backed by the private equity firms Vistria and Apollo, is strong in schools, home health, and per diem nursing. Amergis is the former staffing arm of Maxim Healthcare, split off and renamed, privately held, with a large nurse, allied, and behavioral health footprint. Health Carousel, privately held in Cincinnati, pairs travel nursing with one of the larger pipelines of internationally educated nurses, which matters to hospitals whose domestic nurse pool is exhausted.
The permanent recruiting and executive search firms
| Firm | Ownership | What it sells | Strongest at | Best suited to |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Merritt Hawkins (AMN), Jackson Physician Search, CompHealth permanent placement, The Medicus Firm, Cejka Search, Curative (Doximity) | See above; Medicus privately held; Curative owned by Doximity, publicly traded | Permanent physician and advanced practice search, retained or contingency | National reach and, at the retained firms, a defined process and published research | Health systems opening many searches a year, and leadership or rare-subspecialty searches |
| WittKieffer, Korn Ferry health practice, Cejka Search | Employee-owned; publicly traded, NYSE: KFY; Cross Country | Retained executive and physician-leader search | C-suite, department chair, and academic leadership searches run by committee | Boards and search committees that expect an executive-search process |
| The independents, including MedStaff Nationwide | Privately held (MedStaff: Milford, Connecticut) | Permanent clinician recruitment, mostly on contingency | One named recruiter per search, negotiable terms, and depth in the specialties each firm places every week | Single searches, specialty-specific needs, community health centers, and employers who want to talk to the person running the search |
Permanent search is a far smaller market than staffing, and we have compared its firms in detail elsewhere, so this section stays short. The physician search firms, including the search divisions of the staffing companies above, are set against each other in our comparison of the top physician recruiting firms. Executive search is a separate field with its own firms: WittKieffer, employee-owned, which bought the healthcare-focused Ross & Company in December 2025; Korn Ferry's health practice; and Cejka. A search committee hiring a chief medical officer or a dean will expect that process and should buy it from a firm that runs it every week.
Where MedStaff Nationwide fits
In the first table, nowhere: we are not a staffing company, and if you need two hundred contract nurses by January you should call one of the firms listed there. In the second, among the independents. MedStaff Nationwide recruits permanent physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, CRNAs, nurses, and behavioral health and dental clinicians for employers in all 50 states, on contingency, with no fee unless you hire; our record and our terms are set out, next to the other physician search firms, in the physician firms comparison. Interim physician and advanced practice coverage runs through our sister company, MedStaff Locum Tenens, and because we would rather you hired the clinician than kept renting one, the conversion terms are written before the locum starts.
Staffing or recruiting? Match the firm to the problem
The sorting question is not which firm is best but which kind of firm your vacancy calls for. Four tests settle most cases.
- How long will the need last? A leave, a seasonal census swing, or an opening while a search runs is a staffing problem: travel, per diem, or locum coverage with a defined end date. A role that will exist in three years is a recruiting problem, and paying a staffing margin on it for three years is the most expensive way to fill it.
- How many people, in how many places? Dozens of nurses across a system is a program, and programs are what the staffing giants are built to run through a vendor-management platform. One psychiatrist for one clinic is a search, and the giants' search divisions will do it, but so will a specialty firm whose recruiter answers the phone.
- Is the shortage local or structural? A unit that cannot be staffed from the regional nurse pool at any wage is where the international nurse pipelines (Health Carousel and a few others) earn their place, with lead times measured in months and immigration counsel in the agreement.
- Who signs off? A board or a search committee hiring a chief medical officer or a chief nursing officer expects a retained executive-search process and a firm that runs one. A medical director for a health center does not need it.
- And if the site is a community health center: whichever kind of firm you choose, pick one that has placed there and leads with loan repayment, HPSA scoring, and schedule, not base salary. Our FQHC recruiting playbook explains why that pitch wins.
Terms to get in writing from a staffing agency
A staffing agreement is where the price actually lives, and the brochure rate is rarely the whole of it. Ask every agency for its written answer on each line below and compare the answers, not the rates. For the equivalent list on a permanent search, use the scorecard in the physician firms comparison.
| Term | A good answer | A warning sign |
|---|---|---|
| Bill rate | One all-inclusive hourly or daily rate on a written order, with malpractice, travel, and lodging inside it or priced line by line before you sign | A headline rate with malpractice, housing, travel, or a "rate adjustment" added after the clinician starts |
| Guaranteed hours | The weekly hours you commit to, stated, so the clinician will commit to the assignment | Silence on hours, which usually means you pay for them anyway |
| Overtime and call | Premium rates for overtime, holidays, and call stated up front, with the threshold they start at | "Standard premiums apply," unspecified |
| Cancellation | A notice period for ending the assignment early, and the same notice owed to you if the clinician leaves | A cancellation fee on your side and none on theirs |
| Conversion | A stated fee if a contract clinician joins your staff, falling as the assignment lengthens, with hours already billed credited | A conversion clause that makes hiring the clinician cost more than keeping the contract |
| Credentialing | A complete, primary-source-verified file to your medical staff office within a stated number of business days of acceptance | A start date that waits on documents nobody owns |
| Fill performance | The agency's fill rate and median time from request to a credentialed start, for your specialty, over the last year | A best case, or "it depends" |
Frequently asked questions
- What are the largest healthcare recruiting firms in the United States?
- By staffing revenue, per Staffing Industry Analysts' 2026 ranking of 2025 results: Aya Healthcare, CHG Healthcare, Jackson Healthcare, AMN Healthcare, and Medical Solutions, which together hold about two-fifths of the market. Cross Country Healthcare, Supplemental Health Care, Amergis, and Health Carousel are also among the largest. Those rankings measure temporary staffing (travel nurses, locum tenens, allied health). Permanent clinician recruiting is a separate, smaller market led by Merritt Hawkins, Jackson Physician Search, CompHealth, The Medicus Firm, Curative, and several hundred independent firms, including MedStaff Nationwide.
- What is the difference between a healthcare staffing agency and a healthcare recruiting firm?
- A staffing agency supplies clinicians who stay the agency's employees or contractors (travel nurses, locum tenens physicians, allied health professionals) on an hourly or daily bill rate, and the engagement ends when the need does. A recruiting firm finds a clinician who becomes your employee, for a one-time placement fee owed when you hire. Many large companies do both under different brands; the fee model and the agreement are different purchases.
- How much do healthcare recruiting firms charge?
- It depends on which of the three services you are buying. Staffing is priced as an hourly or daily bill rate that should cover the clinician's pay, the agency's margin, and malpractice, with guaranteed hours, overtime, and travel spelled out on the order. Permanent placement is a one-time fee, roughly 20 to 30 percent of the hire's first-year base compensation across the industry, owed only on a hire for a contingency search or paid in installments on a retained one. Executive search is retained and commonly quoted around a third of first-year compensation. The question that matters most is what the number leaves out: add-ons on a bill rate, and what the percentage is applied to on a placement fee.
- Should a hospital use one firm for staffing and recruiting?
- It can simplify billing and give you one account manager, and the largest firms sell exactly that. The catch is an incentive: an agency earning a margin on every hour a locum or travel nurse works gives up that margin the day you hire the clinician. If you use one firm for both, settle the conversion terms before the first assignment starts, in writing: the fee if a contract clinician becomes your employee, how it falls as the assignment lengthens, and whether hours already billed count toward it.
- Is MedStaff Nationwide a healthcare recruiting firm?
- Yes, on the permanent side. MedStaff Nationwide is privately owned, based in Milford, Connecticut, and recruits physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, CRNAs, nurses, behavioral health clinicians, and dental professionals who become your employees, in all 50 states, on contingency. We are not a staffing company: we do not supply travel nurses or run managed workforce programs. Interim physician and advanced practice coverage comes through our sister company, MedStaff Locum Tenens, with the conversion terms written before the assignment starts.