Cross Country says "I do"
Welcome to Locums Digest, Locumpedia’s free bi-weekly roundup of industry news and trends that helps locum tenens agencies and healthcare facilities make informed business decisions.
In this edition of Locums Digest: Aya Healthcare’s seismic $615 million acquisition of Cross Country Healthcare will create one of the largest medical staffing firms in the country, with an estimated $350 million in combined locum tenens revenue. This move also significantly expands Aya’s offerings into nonclinical staffing, telehealth, and predictive analytics. The Cross Country Board of Directors has unanimously approved the sale. If stockholders approve, the transaction will be finalized in the first half of 2025.
Acquisition Unites Two Staffing Powerhouses
December 4, 2024 | Business Wire, Staffing Industry Analysts, Brent Pantazi, managing director, Nolan & Associates
In a move that will significantly expand the reach of two of the country’s largest locums agencies, Aya Healthcare announced it will acquire Cross Country Healthcare. The two companies offer complementary, tech-enabled workforce solutions across the continuum of care and already share strategic visions; Cross Country’s president and CEO, John A. Martins, was previously a strategy executive at Aya.
For clinical and nonclinical professionals staffed in all 50 states, Cross Country will diversify Aya’s healthcare staffing footprint across locum tenens, interim healthcare leadership, travel nursing, and allied health, per diem, and permanent staff hiring. Cross Country also provides clinical services in nonclinical settings, including schools and homes, where Aya has not had a strong presence. Their combined technology will create an accessible suite of VMS, MSP, and clinician-facing technologies, including seamless vendor management, float pool technology, provider services, and predictive analytics. These are expected to help reduce the cost of care while delivering high clinical outcomes.
The sale is valued at approximately $615 million. It represents a premium of 67 percent to Cross Country’s closing price on Dec. 3, 2024, the day before the announcement. Brett Pantazi of investment banking firm Nolan & Associates, an investment banking firm, believes Aya was already outperforming locums growth forecasts thanks to earlier acquisitions of Vizient and DocCafe. Now, the firm estimates that Aya’s pending acquisition of Cross Country would result in $350 million combined locum tenens revenue for the year, making Aya, already the largest healthcare staffing firm, into the fifth-largest locum tenens firm.
The Cross Country Board of Directors unanimously approved the sale and will recommend that stockholders vote in favor of it. If they do, the transaction will be completed in the first half of 2025. Cross Country will maintain its brand, with Martins continuing as president and CEO, and will become a private entity. Aya, based in San Diego, California, expects to maintain a significant presence in Boca Raton, Florida, Cross Country’s home.
La Vida Locum
Locums: The Holiday Help Every Facility Can Consider
December 5, 2024 | MPLT Healthcare
‘Tis the season for surprise gaps in coverage due to seasonal illness among providers and increased patient volume. Even with the best proactive strategy around holiday staffing needs, facilities can work with locum tenens agency partners to pivot in the moment and put additional providers on their rosters. Locums reduce stress on permanent teams and enhance the overall patient experience, especially during the holiday busyness.
Beyond staffing during this holiday season, the New Year is a good time for locum tenens agencies to review their past performance and reconnect with facilities for smarter planning going forward. By forecasting staffing needs based on what happened this year, they can identify likely gaps in coverage and begin preparing to ensure continued care during high-demand periods, including how best to incorporate locums providers.
Locums Hospitalists Can Be Crucial Links in Rural Healthcare
December 3, 2024 | Wapiti Medical Staffing
Locums hospitalists address two common needs of rural facilities: As locums, they help with tight budgets that may not allow for a deep bench of staff. Hospitalists oversee a patient’s treatment plan, even without primary care physicians or specialists.
This care—comprehensive yet only as needed—translates into several benefits for patients, providers, and facilities:
- Access to Experienced Providers: Hospitalist coverage often includes both physicians and APPs able to address various issues that, without them, might have required the patient to be transferred to a larger hospital.
- Cost-Effective Care: By closely monitoring patient care, hospitalists can reduce unnecessary tests and procedures, catch potential complications, and adjust treatment plans quickly.
- Reduced Physician Burnout: Locums hospitalists focused on inpatient care free up primary care physicians to focus solely on outpatient care.
- Dual Coverage: Many hospitalists are capable of emergency medicine. This ensures seamless continuity of care across acute and inpatient settings.
Leading Locums Agency Named a Best Workplace for Parents
December 4, 2024 | CHG Healthcare
CHG Healthcare has been named to the Fortune Best Workplaces for Parents 2024 list of large companies. The list is compiled by Great Place To Work, a global research authority on workplace culture. To meet the award’s criteria, at least 90% of parents at CHG, regardless of race, gender, and sexual orientation, reported they look forward to working, and 91% want to continue working there. Most workplaces average 52% and 65% in those categories, respectively. Great Place To Work also considered parent-supportive benefits such as parental leave, adoption benefits, and flexible scheduling.
In 2024, Fortune magazine also recognized the company as one of the top 10 of Best Large Workplaces in Health Care and one of the Best Large Workplaces for Women. Overall, 93% of employees say the company is a great place to work, compared to 57% of employees at a typical US-based company.
Locum Leaders
Agency’s Chief Strategy Officer Nominated as Secretary of the Army
December 5, 2024 | OnCall Solutions
Dan Driscoll, OnCall Solutions’ chief strategy officer, has been selected to serve as the next Secretary of the Army. This senior civilian official oversees the service’s multibillion-dollar budget and is responsible for decisions impacting nearly 1 million soldiers and more than 300,000 civilians. Driscoll served in the US Army, including a tour in Iraq. Driscoll’s new position is subject to Senate confirmation.
Hire Power
Empower Healthcare Leadership to Combat Burnout: Key Insights on Building Resilient, Satisfied Teams
November 20, 2024 | Medscape
Proactive and supportive healthcare leadership notably influences their workforce. When facilities empower their physicians, offer career development, and provide respectful feedback, positive factors grow:
- Well-being
- Job satisfaction
- Resilience
Medscape Masters’ multipart “Break the Burnout Cycle: Next-Gen Solutions for Physicians” seminar offers key insights from a panel of physicians that agencies may consider sharing with facility leadership. Building locums into their staffing strategy is a concrete action that leadership can take to demonstrate their commitment to a positive workplace culture. This supports permanent staff by allowing them to focus where they are most needed without inducing burnout.
Webinar: “The State of the Industry: What Healthcare Leaders Need to Know for 2025.”
December 17, 2024, 1–2:15 p.m. ET | Advisory Board
Join Jocelyn Herrington, vice president of strategic partnerships at Advisory Board, for the free webinar “The State of the Industry: What Healthcare Leaders Need to Know for 2025.” Herrington will help you understand the most impactful structural utilization and policy shifts and offer strategies to approach provider networks, pharmacy competition, and harnessing shared healthcare data. Herrington has degrees in public health and healthcare administration and a law degree, which she used to defend and manage professional liability litigation against behavioral health providers.
Healthcare Leaders Warn of Early Signs of Workforce Instability: Staffing Agencies Can Help Address Them
December 3, 2024 | Medicus Healthcare Solutions
During the Cracking the Code: Solutions for Clinical Workforce Stabilization session hosted by Medicus at Becker’s CEO + CFO Roundtable, healthcare leaders shared early-warning signs of workplace instability that they wished they’d heeded:
- Increased staffing strain: Frequent requirements of extra shifts and pre- and post-call expectations, coupled with unmet requests for time off
- Reduced engagement: Fewer collaborative conversations
- Rising costs: Few noticeable improvements in outcomes despite more extraordinary expenses
- Poor recruitment: Repeatedly failing to fill empty roles and having noncompete clauses that are too restrictive
- Growing backlog: Testing morale by allowing things like thousands of imaging studies to go unread each day
By sharing these with facility clients and demonstrating how locums can contribute to a solution, agencies can support healthcare leadership in acting strategically, ensuring operational efficiency and staff well-being.
Making the Rounds
Addressing the Psychiatry Workforce Shortage: How Locums, Telemedicine, and Collaborative Care Can Bridge the Gap
December 2, 2024 | Healthcare Brew
Psychiatry has struggled to keep up with other medical fields in attracting medical students as a top career choice. Many students cite insufficient compensation as a significant deterrent and their inability to balance the demanding nature of the work. Though the number of residency matches grew in 2024, it didn’t come close to many other fields or offset the number of working psychiatrists nearing retirement—about 70% are over 50.
Telemedicine and collaborative care models are two ways current mental health providers can see more patients, especially those living in remote locations. Looking ahead to increasing the number of new psychiatrists, the AMA and the American Psychiatric Association are advocating at the legislative level for more resources for training programs and more visas for internationally trained doctors.
Locums is one more way to bridge the gap. Drawing from psychiatrists and mental health APPs at all career stages, with diverse location and population interests, and flexible schedules, these providers can help facilities maintain their quality of care.
Locums as Part of the Budget Solution for Struggling Ambulatory Surgical Centers
November 27, 2024 | Becker’s ASC Review
Ambulatory surgical centers (ASC) are facing three financial challenges.
- Payer reimbursements: Although ASC rates rose slightly this year, they do not match hospital rates, and leaders say they are not high enough to cover rising costs.
- Anesthesia costs: Anesthesia stipends used to be an uncommon ASC need, but with the provider shortage, this is becoming a more significant issue.
- Overall costs: The cost of everything from supplies and equipment to salaries and pharmaceuticals is rising faster than revenue.
ASC is a growing area for locum tenens that can provide high-quality care without the overhead of full-time staff. This allows for more flexibility in the cost structure.
T2024 Healthcare Trends: Technology at the Forefront of Patient Care, Efficiency, and Accessibility
November 2024 | Spherical Insights
If there’s one word to summarize this year’s healthcare trends, it might be “technology.” We saw significant advancements, continuing demand, and new considerations of related challenges. All of this means tech is significantly impacting patient care, operational efficiency, and healthcare accessibility.
- AI adoption: AI is used for everything from diagnostics and predictive analytics to workflow optimization.
- Virtual appointments: Telemedicine increased by more than 1000% during the pandemic. Patients and physicians alike continue to recognize its benefits.
- Digital platforms: Wearable devices support patient-centered care, helping patients track and monitor their own health while providing early detection signals to healthcare providers.
- Data security: The digitization of healthcare means more work will be done to protect privacy.
As technology companies invest more and government policies are supported, this year will be seen as a landmark in the tech-driven leap in healthcare.
Sponsored Content
Dr. Theodora Fynn’s Love for Medicine Reignited by Locum Tenens
November 26, 2024 | Interim Physicians
Exhausted by repeated 18-hour shifts caring for extremely ill patients during COVID-10, Dr. Theodora Flynn, a critical care pulmonologist, decided she had to downshift for her own well-being. She had always wanted to be a doctor—starting when she was a child in Ghana through her medical degree from the University of Ghana and her residency at Howard University in Washington, DC—but suddenly, she was questioning if she could continue in the medical field.
After exploring career options outside medicine, her passion for patient care called her back. This time, a former colleague encouraged her to choose locums. She would have complete control over her schedule and earn more than she had in her permanent position, all while connecting with and caring for the patients that she had missed.
After trying a few staffing agencies, Dr. Flynn found her locums home with Interim Physicians. She was impressed by their level of service and support, thoughtfulness, and prompt communication and advocacy, even during challenging situations such as travel mishaps. Now she works no more than 13 shifts per month, giving her time to attend everything that both her children are involved in. With one living in the States and one in boarding school in Ghana, the flexibility of locums is key! Dr. Flynn’s story is a clear example of a physician sitting in the driver’s seat of their career, thanks to locums.
How Much Do NPs Make? A Guide to Nurse Practitioner Salaries in 2025
December 9, 2024 | OnCall Solutions
Drawing from sources such as the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Salary.com, and their own staffing experts, OnCall Solutions has written a comprehensive guide to salary trends for NPs. These include key factors that are currently influencing compensation as well as trends to watch. Beyond years of experience, which affects compensation in most fields, there are several indicators to pay attention to:
- Specialty—Those with additional training, such as NPs working in cardiology or psychiatry, tend to earn more.
- Location—Areas with higher living costs, such as urban areas, generally offer strong salary-and-benefits packages.
- Type of employment—An on-staff employee receives health insurance and retirement, while independent contractors may have higher hourly rates but pay their own benefits.
The guide also offers actionable steps to help NPs maximize their salary and build a career that aligns with their goals:
- Choose a high-demand specialty.
- Pursue additional certifications.
- Be flexible about location.
- Consider locums to supplement income and gain diverse experiences and skills.
