The addition of a locum tenens physician to your facility’s team yields the most effective results by first properly preparing them to provide coverage in conjunction with your existing medical staff.

Unlike allied healthcare or nurse travel personnel who are procured for 13-week assignments or longer, doctors practicing locum tenens are expected to fill very specific roles that unfortunately don’t allow them the luxury to ramp up as they go.

Whether you’re a seasoned locum tenens physician or you’ve just accepted your first contract opportunity, proper preparation is key to a successful assignment. The following is suggested for all providers to consider before their next start date:

• EHR

One of the reasons doctors are drawn to locum tenens is the opportunity to get back to basics, and practice medicine in a way that sheds many of the bureaucratic obstacles faced by their full-time counterparts. However, a healthcare facility’s electronic health records (EHR) system is still part of the job that everyone shares. For any locum tenens provider, unfamiliarity with the EHR often equates to the largest time-waster they’ll encounter on any given assignment. Ask your recruiter about the system used by the facility you’re about to walk into, and make sure this administrative duty is not the pain point that stands in your way from quality time with patients.

More and more healthcare facilities are turning to locum tenens staffing solutions for good reasons: with physicians, PA’s, nurse practitioners and specialists available when you need them, the stress of hiring has been lessened. Beyond just the convenience, however, most healthcare facilities want to understand the value of hiring locum tenens.

If you are considering hiring locums, rest assured you are making a wise decision. Here is the information to consider.

Since the Affordable Care Act was signed in March 2010 and began to enroll many more Americans in coverage in 2014, many observers have asserted price inflation in health care has been moderate by historical standards. Such claims are misleading because many observers decline to differentiate between nominal and real inflation. In fact, prices for health-related goods and services have increased significantly.

The measurement of inflation most economists use to gauge the impact of price changes on ordinary people is the Consumer Price Index (CPI), which has been published for decades by the U.S. government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. It measures prices facing consumers for all the goods and services we buy.

As every physician knows, eating well and exercising are two key factors in preventing illness and disease and for maintaining optimal health. But as every locum tenens physician knows, making good food choices and finding time for regular workouts while on the road is no easy task. Here are practical tips for staying fit and healthy while traveling.

Study your schedule in advance. Exercise—a brisk walk, yoga class, or hardcore gym workout—is often the first thing to fall off the list when life gets busy. Before you leave for a locum tenens engagement, look at your schedule and write in your calendar times when you can commit to exercise. Suzanne Schlosberg, author of The Ultimate Workout Log andThe Ultimate Diet Log says exercising four days a week is ideal, but doing something is better than doing nothing. "If it's a short-term stay, you don't necessarily have to maintain your usual level of exercise," she notes. "It doesn't take much to maintain your fitness. If you usually exercise five or six days a week, you can stay fit with twice-a-week workouts if you keep up the intensity of your workout." Schlosberg recommends a morning workout if possible because it's so easy to tell yourself that you're too tired at the end of the day.

The healthcare landscape has been evolving. Facing an aging population, increased access to healthcare through the Affordable Care Act, and a growing physician shortage (an estimated 14,900 to 35,600 just in primary care by 2025), healthcare organizations have been looking for ways to increase efficiency and improve the bottom line, while servicing communities of every size. A growing trend: turning to locum tenens staffing solutions to both enhance care and boost profitability.

The Real Cost of Hiring

What is the real cost of hiring in today’s healthcare industry? By some estimates, it can be as high as $40,000 per physician position filled. When you factor in the time spent reviewing and interviewing applicants, plus the hidden costs such as placements that do not work out and high turnover, it’s no wonder that staffing is sometimes considered one of the most stressful aspects of running an effective organization.

Locum Tenens (Latin for “in the place of”) staffing is a growing industry, supporting healthcare facilities nationwide to meet needs for qualified practitioners. As many as 6% of all active practitioners have worked locum tenens at some point in their careers, most with great satisfaction.

When it comes to understanding the “nuts and bolts” of hiring locum tenens, some common questions emerge. We’ve got your FAQ’s here. Contact us if you have any others.

Hospitals can face harsh penalties for high readmission rates. To avoid the repercussions from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, utilize Locum Tenens clinicians.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (“CMS”) can penalize hospitals when patients are re-admitted for care. These penalties can cost hospitals up to 3 percent of payments from CMS. While some readmissions are unavoidable, many can be prevented with the right support, including Locum Tenens clinicians.

Electronic Medical Records have great potential in healthcare. They can, however, cause issues, including physician burnout. Using Locum Tenens clinicians can avoid this problem.

Since their implementation, Electronic Medical Records (“EMR”) have helped clinicians treat and care for patients. These digital records provide healthcare organizations with the unique opportunity to monitor patient care over time. While they may ultimately improve clinical outcomes in the future, unfortunately, current use of EMRs has come at a cost, including the issue of clinician burnout.

Locum Tenens opportunities are more plentiful and more fruitful than ever. Clinicians who take advantage of Locum Tenens work can expect a secure future in the healthcare field.

There is no doubt that job security is a concern for the American workforce. Recent graduates hope to find a job that allows them to pay off their student loans and industry veterans look forward to a comfortable retirement. To achieve their goals, working men and women must find jobs that offer some level of security. This is no different for individuals in the healthcare field. Fortunately, clinicians who participate in Locum Tenens work are afforded the high level of job security they desire, along with numerous other benefits.

Although not necessarily attributable to the Affordable Care Act, an aging population, or any single factor, it is remarkable how much job growth has occurred in health services since the Great Recession. It is especially remarkable relative to other jobs. Also, changes in employment in health services are not cyclical: They are recession-proof, but they still kept climbing when the economy started to recover. A job in health services seems to have one-sided risk: You don’t go down when other jobs do, but you go up even faster when other jobs increase, too.

Nonfarm civilian employment peaked in January 2008 (at 138.4 million jobs), just before the Great Recession, and bottomed out in February 2010 (at 129.7 million jobs). Jobs were lost in 24 of those 25 months. Nonfarm civilian employment did not cross the January 2008 threshold again until May 2014.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 20, 2017

National Association of Locum Tenens Organizations^® (NALTO^®) Retains Mike Gianas as Lead Marketing Resource

Celebrating NALTO National Locum Tenens Week, August 14-18

Thank you for the interest we’ve received thus far in response to our announcement of the first-ever National Locum Tenens Week, August 14 – 18, 2017. We’d like to provide everyone with a quick update on what to expect from NALTO in the coming weeks, clarify our purpose and communicate the valuable opportunity that lies in promoting our industry together.

The use of locum tenens physicians and advanced practitioners has risen to become the predominant staffing solution for our nation’s ongoing shortage of providers and increased demand for care.

I’ve blogged in the past about the doctor shortage. It’s a familiar issue we’ve been facing for decades now. However, there are some additional challenges that have surfaced in recent years that are also driving the need for locum tenens.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 20, 2017

National Association of Locum Tenens Organizations^® (NALTO^®) Announces Stacey Stanley as President, New Members to Board of Directors

The challenge for medical practice managers facing a vacancy of physicians or advanced practitioners right now is arguably more difficult than the same battle faced by their counterparts with ties to larger healthcare delivery systems.

Major hospitals, regional medical facilities, networks comprised of multiple clinics, and practices employed by the like have more resources at their disposal when approaching this issue. Corporate healthcare hiring managers have more provider bandwidth in the event of turnover, more time to react, deeper pockets for prolonged searches, in-house recruiters at their disposal, and access to a number of other resources that are more applicable to an organization of their size.

The healthcare field is growing rapidly. The demands on all facets of the industry have increased with this marked growth. Full-time physicians and advanced practitioners, as well as Locum Tenens professionals, are providing great benefits to patients and healthcare facilities across the United States. Arranging these unions between providers and facilities, however, is left in the expert hands of healthcare recruiters. While this position can be exciting, fulfilling, and lucrative, it also has the potential for burnout. Fortunately, healthcare recruiters have the ability to manage their stressors, using a few simple techniques.

The Stressors of Healthcare Recruiting

Every recruiter knows the term “KPI.” Recruiters know that they must meet or exceed these standards in order to become successful in their field. While this challenge can be exciting and can incite healthy competition, it can also be quite stressful. Often, this means making countless phone calls, managing client needs, and creating harmonious provider/facility matches, among other necessary duties.

The key to avoiding practice turnover and retaining today's medical providers is to focus on their overall job satisfaction from day one. Keeping a pulse on the health and well-being of your staff to look for early signs of burnout, and paying close attention to the concerns of their loved ones outside your practice are vital.

Top Reasons for Turnover

Medical providers who wish to practice in multiple states have traditionally faced a timely and cumbersome licensure process to do so. Therefore, many locum tenens companies have entire departments dedicated to helping physicians and advanced practitioners complete the necessary verification and credentialing requirements needed to begin any assignment. This includes assisting providers who need to attain (or renew) their license to practice medicine, a process that’s historically taken as long as six months in a single state.

Therein lies the recent good news from the Federation of State Medical Boards regarding the onset of the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (or “IMLC”), designed to expedite the process for physicians to obtain multiple licenses through a single application.