After an action-packed LT Week, it’s back to business
After putting out Locums Digest 75 last week, we’re back already with another edition of Locums Digest to start off this week.
In this edition, we discuss the increased use of APPs and staffing tech platforms, interesting blog posts from top locums agencies, a big change at CHG, SIA’s just-announced list of the largest agencies in 2024, a big merger, the challenges of combining locums and perm, and much more.
If you haven’t read our blockbuster story last week on how NALTO was founded in 2001 during a tense meeting at the ATL airport, we encourage you to bookmark it and read it with a good cup of coffee, tea, or your beverage of choice. 🙂
Thanks for reading!
Healthcare Staffing Trends Show Increased Use of APPs and Staffing Platforms
July 16, 2024 | Staffing Industry Analysts
In its “US Healthcare Staffing Market Assessment: 2024 Update,” SIA reports projected growth in the employment of nurse practitioners and physician assistants. These providers are finding a greater variety of placements and taking on more responsibilities, especially during the physician shortage.
Between 2022 and 2032, NP employment is expected to grow by 45% and PA employment by 27%. The reason for this is twofold:
- There is an increasing need for quality care, which locums NPs and PAs are well suited for. The population is aging, and the geographical need for more providers continues to develop.
- NPs and PAs have broad and deep training, and facilities consider them a cost-effective care option.
The report noted the rise of healthcare staffing platforms, which have primarily focused in the past on nurse staffing models. This growth indicates that other arenas, such as locum tenens, may become focus areas for these platforms in the future.
Agencies continue to be a key part of the staffing landscape. Customized solutions are important because healthcare facilities face challenges that a no one-size-fits-all approach can solve. Whether it’s dealing with unexpected patient surges, filling specialized positions, or managing staff transitions, working directly with a staffing professional offers the personalized touch to help facilities quickly meet these demands. This tailored approach helps keep care seamless, a facility’s operations smooth, and both patient outcomes and staff satisfaction on track.
The full report and additional market assessments are available for any SIA corporate members to view.
La Vida Locum
Agency Guidance Is Critical To Facility And Locum Success
July 25, 2024 | HealthLeaders Media
Locum tenens have always been essential in addressing workforce gaps, but amid the physician shortage, even more facilities are relying on them for critical support. Agencies have an opportunity to set their clients up for success by exploring ways to incorporate locums into their clients’ current staffing models.
For example, educating facilities about the financial benefits of hiring locum providers helps them understand the ability to generate additional margins by being fully staffed. They also can help a facility examine its internal processes to understand how locums fit.
These are three meaningful ways that a facility can better integrate a locum provider:
- Position locums as team members rather than as expendable commodities.
- Establish a thoughtful onboarding process for locums that connects them with other team members, shares the facility’s mission, values, and strategic priorities, and acquaints them with the facility.
- Be transparent with your metrics and how locum providers will be measured.
Weatherby: Above-Average Physician Pay Is Possible In Unexpected Locations
July 10, 2024 | Weatherby Healthcare
Understanding the physician hiring market helps agencies target highly compensated specialties and areas of the country that may be attractive for locums assignments.
Recently, Weatherby considered reports by Medscape and Doximity to determine eight states and five metro regions that offer higher-than-average physician salaries. These areas are primed for locum tenens and will be more financially attractive to providers.
Most of the areas made the lists due to elements such as cost of living (both high and low), demand for quality healthcare, diversity of patient financial and medical situations, geographical remoteness, and reputation for innovation in healthcare, which indicates that placing providers there may come with additional financial benefits.
Understanding physician pay trends can help facilities and locums agencies make lucrative connections.
Vista: Providers seeking their own malpractice insurance have several things to consider
July 23, 2024 | Vista Staffing
While most locum agencies provide malpractice insurance, providers may choose to hold their own insurance across assignments to reduce interruption in coverage. Vista Staffing recently published guidance for locums to consider when selecting their own policy. One tip: consider carrying an occurrence-based policy as it protects against incidents that happen during the policy period—it does not matter when the claim is filed.
Insurers may perceive locum tenens as being of higher risk because they do not follow a traditional employment pattern. Sharing detailed information about specialty training and consistent experience across assignments can help demonstrate to insurers a lower risk of providing coverage.
They also clarified that careful record-keeping is paramount. A comprehensive list of assignments and incidents is helpful when responding to an inquiry or filing a claim.
Locum Leaders
Leslie Snavely Takes the Helm as CEO of CHG Healthcare
August 14, 2024 | CHG Healthcare
CHG Healthcare has announced the promotion of Leslie Snavely from president to CEO, succeeding Scott Beck, who is retiring after 25 years with the company. Since joining CHG in 2010, Snavely has held several key leadership positions, including president, chief sales officer, and chief strategy and digital officer. Her leadership has been instrumental in evolving CHG’s business model to incorporate a tech-driven growth strategy while maintaining the company’s core value of putting people first.
“I’m honored to lead a company that makes such a huge impact on people’s lives every day, both through the healthcare facilities we support and the physicians we place who provide life-saving care to our communities,” Snavely said.
Throughout her time at CHG, Snavely’s has been been a strong advocate for inclusion, ensuring that everyone at CHG has a voice and feels empowered to be themselves at work.
Snavely achievement include recognition on the list of Global Power 150 Women in Staffing and the Top 100 Leaders in North America in 2023. She also served as vice chair of the Women’s Leadership Institute of Utah and has been activel
Staffing Industry Analysts Publishes Annual Healthcare Staffing Ranking Report
July 31, 2024 | Staffing Industry Analysts
Last month, SIA published its annual ranking of healthcare staffing companies by revenue, including a list of locum tenens firms with over $25 million in annual revenue. Twenty-one locums firms made the Top 100 Largest Healthcare Staffing Firms in the United States. According to the report, the locum tenens market was estimated to be worth $7.5 billion in 2023.
In addition to the downloadable report available to SIA corporate members, this year SIA created an interactive tool on its website that allows users to look at the rankings since 2014 to see the changes in both the marketplace overall and by individual staffing firms. SIA recognizes that this data is used to broadly understand the state of the US healthcare staffing industry.
Below is a list of locum tenens firms that have announced their recognition on the SIA list:
- Medicus Healthcare Solutions (#4)
- Barton Associates (#5)
- All Star Healthcare Solutions (#7)
- Ingenovis Health (#9)
- MPLT Healthcare (#11)
- IMN Enterprises (#16)
- Interim Physicians (#19)
- Epic Staffing Group (#21)
- Floyd Lee Locums (#27)
TheraEx Staffing Merges with SVC, Marking Fourth Acquisition in 2024
July 26, 2024 | Staffing Industry Analysts
California-based TheraEx Staffing merged with the SVC Group of Companies in June. TheraEx’s two-year-old locum tenens division was of particular interest in the deal. SVC seeks to bring together niche staffing firms to offer comprehensive services under one roof for market stability.
This merger marks SVC’s fourth acquisition this year, including TeamRecruit and OCal Solutions. SVC emphasized that such consolidations are essential for long-term stability and superior service in the healthcare staffing industry. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Hire Power
Agencies Face Challenges in Combining Locum Tenens and Permanent Placement Staffing
August 5, 2024 | Jim Stone
Many physician staffing agencies focus on locum tenens or permanent placements rather than both. Jim Stone, an executive advisor with Odyssey Staffing, thinks the two operations go together like peanut butter and jelly, but he wonders if the complexities of merging the two under one delivery group are prohibitive to all but the largest of agencies. His recent opinion article shared to LinkedIn looks at the similarities and differences that impact this alignment.
Locums and permanent staffing teams are similar in many ways, indicating an easy blend of the two.
- Both have high regard for their relationships with physicians and facilities.
- Neither can avoid the industry’s challenges, such as facility consolidation and provider shortages.
- Both look for the same highly skilled talent and develop similar robust onboarding programs.
There are also differences between the two.
- Those working with locum tenens target certain specialties, while those placing permanent staff contact facilities of all types.
- The placement of locums providers usually takes days, maybe even hours. Doctors seeking a permanent role are placed in weeks, sometimes months.
The stickiest challenge for those placing locums doctors may be maintaining long-term trust with those providers, including smoothly handling the constantly moving pieces of their travel and pay. Permanent staffing teams must be experts in everything from complex employment contracts to managing the emotions of family members relocating with the provider.
Offering both locums and permanent placement can make an agency a powerhouse in healthcare staffing—but only if they enter the arrangement with great care and planning.
NALTO Webinar Highlights Importance of Code of Ethics, Tips to Avoid Ethical Dilemmas
August 21, 2024 | Locumpedia, NALTO
During a recent webinar with management consulting group Butler Street, NALTO board members emphasized that the organization’s code of ethics is more than just a set of guidelines; it’s a framework that ensures staffing agencies operate with integrity, transparency, and respect for one another, as well as for the clients and providers they serve.
NALTO was created in 2001 in response to the rapid expansion of locum tenens staffing, which led to increased malpractice insurance premiums and unscrupulous business practices. The ethical code they created sets clear expectations for agencies, such as honoring agreements, protecting confidentiality, and avoiding misleading practices. These standards have helped safeguard the interests of clients and job candidates, fostering a culture of professionalism that has benefitted the entire industry as it has grown over the past two decades.
Panelists at the webinar shared real-world insights on navigating ethical dilemmas, stressing the importance of proactive communication and thorough documentation to avoid conflicts. The NALTO ethics committee plays a crucial role in upholding these standards, rigorously investigating complaints, and ensuring that any breaches are addressed fairly.
We’ll dive deeper into this webinar in an upcoming Locums Brief, so stay tuned!
Making the Rounds
Attrition is Not the Primary Reason for Radiologist Shortages
July 24, 2024 | Radiology Business
Much has been reported about practitioner shortages across medical fields. A prevailing belief is this is caused by individuals leaving their field. Interestingly, recent research finds that attrition is not the main reason for too few practicing radiologists.
Attrition affected about 13% of radiologists, regardless of age or gender, during the study period of 2015–2019. In contrast, it affected 18% of primary care physicians, 17% of surgeons, 20% of pathologists, and 27% of emergency medicine physicians.
The study by NYU Grossman School of Medicine analyzed Medicare data and found that attrition rates were 14% for male radiologists and 12% for female radiologists, with higher attrition among those aged 65 or older (6%) compared to those 45 or younger (3%).
While the study did not explore alternative reasons, the authors suggested that more focus could be paid to the insufficient number of medical students entering the radiology field. In 2022-2023, there were only 5,541 diagnostic and interventional radiology residents across all training years. To address the shortage, the American College of Radiology has called for legislative action, advocating for the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act, which proposes increasing Medicare-funded graduate medical education positions by 14,000 over the next seven years.
Physicians Need Mental Health Support At Every Point In Their Career
July 8, 2024 | California Health Report
According to the California Health Report, US physicians are experiencing a mental health crisis. As a group, they face higher rates of depressive symptoms than the general population, which impacts not only the physician but patient care as well.
Every day in the US, a physician dies by suicide, which means that over a year, a million patients will lose their doctor this way.
The op-ed recognizes that there needs to be a cultural shift toward destigmatizing mental health concerns and supporting those who need treatment. Being encouraged to express vulnerability and seek help should not be perceived as a weakness or failure. An important step would be to reform or remove the mental health question on licensure applications so that doctors do not fear penalties.
