It’s good to be bling
In this edition of Locums CME, we bring you a report explaining why your pay has gone way up each year since 2019. Also, how to blend work with family on assignment this summer, locum tenens myths… busted, more on burnout trends, how Google’s new medical AI is beating doctors, and so much more.
Continue your locum tenens education with Locums CME 35 below!
Provider Compensation Surges for Fourth-Straight Year, MGMA Reports
May 29, 2024 | RevCycleIntelligence
According to recent data from the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), provider compensation rose for the fourth consecutive year in 2023. Primary care and nonsurgical specialty physicians experienced the largest median compensation increase (4%).
Other specialties with significant compensation gains include:
- Dermatology (10%)
- Neurological surgery (10%)
- General orthopedic surgery (9%)
- Advanced practice providers (7%)
In addition to pay hikes, provider productivity has risen across nearly all specialties and work settings. MGMA President and CEO Dr. Halee Fischer-Wright noted that despite rising overhead costs, declining physician reimbursements, and a tough labor market, medical groups elevated their productivity in 2023 to meet the growing demand for care in their communities.
MGMA advised medical group leaders to adopt new digital technology to streamline operations and reduce administrative burdens, aiming to overcome these challenges as they persist into the next year. Tools that automate scheduling and registration processes can help groups maintain access to care and save money, MGMA claimed.
Check out MGMA’s provider compensation survey for more details.
Your Locums Prescription
Wapiti: Blend Work With Family on Assignment This Summer
June 5, 2024 | Wapiti Medical Staffing
The flexibility of locum tenens work lets clinicians adjust their schedules to fit family plans, allowing time for beach vacations, camping trips, and other outdoor adventures. Traveling to diverse locations is a personal and professional perk, as are the competitive pay rates, housing stipends, and travel expense reimbursements.
To maximize these benefits, providers should plan ahead by securing desirable assignments and ensuring necessary licenses and credentials are in order.
Vista: Busting Myths About Locum Tenens
April 30, 2024 | Vista Staffing
The healthcare industry frequently faces staffing fluctuations due to seasonal surges, turnover, and emergencies. Locum tenens is an excellent solution for coverage gaps despite common misconceptions. Locum tenens roles are not just for late-career physicians; nearly 40% are early or mid-career. These positions do not disrupt patient care, as providers integrate seamlessly into teams and are thoroughly vetted by staffing agencies. Due to consistent demand, they offer significant schedule control, competitive compensation, travel allowances, and job security.
Securing locum tenens assignments is straightforward with the comprehensive support of staffing agencies, providing exclusive opportunities, administrative assistance, and career guidance. These roles offer unmatched flexibility, pay, and diverse opportunities, appealing to physicians at all career stages.
Hayes: Work Locum Tenens to Quickly Eliminate Debt
June 6, 2024 | Hayes Locums
Average medical student debt now exceeds $200,000. In their blog post, Hayes Locums highlights locum tenens as a strategic solution for maximizing income, helping recent grads pay off debt faster. Repaying a federal student loan can take over 10 years. With a 7% interest rate on direct unsubsidized loans, a $200,000 loan could cost more than $278,000. Private loan rates can reach 15%, pushing repayment to over $387,000.
While earnings vary by demand, specialty, and assignment, locum positions generally provide higher hourly rates than full-time positions. Short-term assignments can supplement full-time income, further accelerating med school loan repayments.
Medicus: Planning Your Career with Locum Tenens
May 23, 2024 | Medicus Healthcare Solutions
Navigating life after residency or fellowship can be daunting, but starting with key career questions can ease the transition. Early planning helps align career goals with personal preferences and provides ample time for interview preparation. Consider your ideal practice setting, location, patient population, work schedule, and what success means to you.
While permanent positions offer stability, locum tenens work is increasingly popular for its flexibility, autonomy, and higher pay rates. Assignments, ranging from a few weeks to several months, often involve covering shifts for full-time doctors on leave or during seasonal patient surges.
Locum tenens physicians typically earn higher hourly wages and, when partnered with a healthcare staffing agency, can have travel, housing, and transportation expenses covered. Locum roles also offer a more adjustable schedule, reducing burnout and allowing doctors to experience diverse clinical settings and locations, aiding in long-term career decisions.
Physician Wellness Retreat
Physician Compensation Report Highlights Growing Burnout, Gender Pay Gap, and Retirement Concerns
May 23, 2024 | Fortune
A recent Doximity survey revealed that 81% of American physicians feel overworked, with 88% indicating that the physician shortage affects their practice. The 2024 Physician Compensation Report surveyed 33,000 full-time US physicians in 2023 and highlighted a severe burnout epidemic fueled by low pay, high workloads, and increasing administrative burdens.
Morale is also critically low, with 30% considering early retirement. The report showed doctors now spend more time on paperwork than patient care, with administrative tasks taking up to four hours daily.
While physician salaries increased by 6% in 2023, this does not offset the 26% decline in Medicare payments since 2001 or the average medical school debt of $200,000. The financial strain and the perception that doctors are well-compensated and free from money concerns add to their frustration.
The report also highlighted a persistent gender pay gap, with female physicians earning 23% less than their male colleagues. Over their careers, this translates to male physicians earning more than $2 million more than their female counterparts in the same field.
To mitigate these issues, the report suggests increasing education funding, implementing loan forgiveness programs, expanding telehealth, and integrating AI to reduce administrative tasks.
Health Practices to Help Older Physicians Combat Burnout
May 22, 2024 | American Medical Association
According to the American Medical Association, more than half of physicians experience burnout symptoms, including emotional exhaustion and depersonalization. Lifestyle medicine, a growing specialty with more than 11,000 members in the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, offers a proactive approach to combating burnout.
- Engaging in physical activity
- Eating nutritious food
- Getting restorative sleep
- Stress resilience
- Positive social connections
- Avoiding drugs and alcohol
These principles help manage chronic conditions like diabetes and coronary artery disease while supporting overall health.
Dr. Elizabeth Pegg Frates, president of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, said lifestyle medicine is a tool to help senior physicians maintain their health.
As older physicians transition to retirement, staying connected and maintaining a sense of purpose is also crucial to their mental health. Dr. Frates said mentoring, teaching, consulting, or community involvement can help. She also advises doctors to remain socially active in and outside the medical community.
Doctor’s Notes
Google’s Med-Gemini AI Surpasses ChatGPT-4 and Outperforms Doctors
May 6, 2024 | New Atlas
Google Research and DeepMind introduced Med-Gemini, a family of AI models specializing in medicine that offer significant advancements in clinical diagnostics. Physicians face diverse and complex cases requiring up-to-date knowledge and strong doctor-patient relationships. Med-Gemini emulates these capabilities using multimodal AI, which processes text, images, videos, and audio for better understanding and long-context reasoning.
Med-Gemini enhanced the foundational Google Gemini capabilities with specialized medical training, combining self-training and web search abilities to improve its clinical reasoning and diagnostic accuracy. Med-Gemini uses datasets like MedQA, which consists of multiple-choice questions similar to those on the US Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE), to test medical knowledge and reasoning in different scenarios. It enhances accuracy by incorporating web search results to resolve uncertainties when answering medical questions.
The model has demonstrated superior performance on 14 medical benchmarks, achieving 91% accuracy on the USMLE benchmark and surpassing previous models by 5%. Additionally, Med-Gemini excels in retrieving specific information from electronic health records, reducing clinicians’ cognitive workload.
In tests, Med-Gemini accurately diagnosed conditions from patient interactions and interpreted medical images. Its multimodal capabilities also enabled natural interactions between clinicians and AI systems. Researchers emphasize the need for further development to ensure AI in healthcare is reliable, safe, and used ethically.
78% of US Physicians Now Employees of Corporate Entities
April 11, 2024 | Physicians Advocacy Institute
A recent report by the Physicians Advocacy Institute revealed a major shift in physician practice ownership in the US. Today, 78% of physicians are employed by hospitals, health systems, or other businesses, a sharp rise from 26% in 2012. Over the past decade, hospitals and health systems have hired nearly 263,000 physicians. Between January 1, 2019, and December 31, 2023, more than 44,000 private practices were acquired.
For the first time, corporate entities now own more physician practices (30%) than hospitals (28%). The report attributed the shift to the COVID-19 pandemic and physician burnout, which has led 127,000 physicians to move to corporate employment.
The report emphasizes that doctors must remain autonomous to make their medical decisions so patients get the best care.
Job Market Booms for Final-Year Residents
June 4, 2024 | American Medical Association
The latest AMN Healthcare Physician Solutions survey has good news for final-year medical residents. It revealed a strong job market rebound post-COVID-19. In 2023, 56% of residents received 100 or more job offers, up from 30% in 2021—the highest since the survey began in 1991.
Leah Grant, president of AMN Healthcare Physician Solutions, noted employers favor younger physicians due to their potential for long-term growth within health systems. However, the survey also highlighted gender inequities: only 51% of female residents received 100 or more job inquiries compared to 61% of males. Additionally, 16% of women expected to earn $200,000 or less annually, compared to just 3% of men. On the other hand, 53% of men anticipated making $326,000 or more annually, while only 32% of women had similar expectations.
The survey revealed that 48% of residents feel unprepared for the business side of medicine, with 61% lacking formal training. As a result, 68% prefer hospital employment over solo practice, indicating they likely have limited exposure to private practice.
To support residents looking for employment, the AMA provides resources such as the AMA Physicians’ Guide to Hospital Employment Contracts to help physicians navigate employment settings and succeed in their careers.
Sponsored Content
Locum Tenens Travel Arrangements: How Interim Physicians Ensures Smooth Journeys for Providers
May 21, 2024 | Interim Physicians
Interim Physicians sets itself apart by offering comprehensive travel coordination services for locum tenens providers, managed by Travel Manager Stefannie Rose and her experienced team. With 52 years of combined experience, the team ensures a seamless journey for providers by booking flights, hotels, and rental cars and providing 24/7 support. Stefannie’s dedication goes beyond logistics; she builds personal connections with providers and assists them in overcoming travel challenges, ensuring their focus remains on patient care. Her team’s commitment to exceptional service has earned them numerous accolades, making them a trusted partner in the locum tenens industry.
Why Staffing Firms that Integrate Locum Tenens with Direct Hiring are a Hospital’s Secret Advantage
May 29, 2024 | Covelo Direct
Ensuring complete staff coverage is essential for hospitals to maintain seamless operations and consistent patient care. Balancing the need for locum tenens and permanent providers can be challenging, but a boutique firm offering both can provide a transformative solution. Siloed staffing models often fail to meet the diverse needs of rural hospitals, where versatile professionals are essential. Integrated healthcare staffing firms offer the flexibility to bridge workforce gaps and ensure continuity of care. They provide a diverse talent pool and streamline the hiring process, reducing administrative burden. A recent article from Covelo Direct discusses how their firm caters to permanent and locum tenens staffing solutions to become a strategic partner for its providers and clients.
A Full-Time Locum Tenens Salary Guide: 9 Factors that Determine How Much Can You Earn by Specialty in 2024
June 10, 2024 | OnCall Solutions
Locum tenens work is becoming increasingly popular among physicians and advanced practice providers for its flexible schedules and competitive pay. This salary guide from OnCall Solutions outlines nine key factors influencing locum tenens earnings, including geographic location, travel requirements, housing costs, contract length, and more. Read the full story to discover why locum tenens is becoming a viable and attractive career path for clinicians seeking professional growth and flexibility.
