The next stage in solving the physician shortage is to create incentives to lure doctors to practice medicine, of which suitable wages are the first priority. There is no doubt that low wages is a factor in the physician shortage. The average doctor's salary is NIS 42 (USD 12) per hour! Unreasonable workload is another cause for potential doctors preferring other earning alternatives – either choosing another profession or practicing medicine abroad.

The physician shortage in the periphery is recognized as especially severe. Moving from the center of the country to the periphery requires substantial personal, financial, and familial efforts and resources. Therefore, a comprehensive incentives package must be offered to doctors and their families who move to the periphery.

Recommendations for such an incentives package have been submitted in the past – both by the Ministry of Health’s committee on “healthcare in the periphery” and the Knesset Information and Research Center. It is advisable to secure incentives for doctors, which would encourage them to work in medical institutions in the periphery. In order to do so, location-specific staffing standards must first be allocated for medical workforce in hospitals and clinics in the north and the south of the country.

The preferred solution is providing housing and study grants to doctors and their families who move to the periphery, including grants for buying homes, rent and tuition subsidies, or alternatively, absorption grants. This would come in addition to increasing the wages of all hospital and community doctors in these areas.

Similarly, in order to deal with the severe and even critical physician shortage in specialties in crisis, an incentives package must be in place, which will increase the initial attraction of these specialties for doctors and ensure that doctors will choose to specialize in these professions. To this end, it would be advisable, as previously mentioned, to delineate specific staffing standards for these fields. Furthermore, bonuses for doctors who choose these specializations, and sufficiently higher wages would drive doctors towards these crisis fields.