Facilities

How to Stay Profitable With Locum Staffing

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Operating a modern healthcare facility, whether that be a clinic, hospital, industrial setting, or some hybrid model, is almost as much about managing the financial viability of the organization as it is about the healthcare being delivered by staff. Let’s be honest: if you can’t afford to keep your doors open, no one is going to receive care from your team. We don’t like to acknowledge that finances often drive choices in healthcare, but that’s frequently the reality, especially when it comes to staffing. We understand the burdens healthcare facilities and organizations face when costs are a top priority, and in this article, we’ll provide information about how to stay profitable when staffing with locum tenens healthcare providers.

The Importance of Considering Cost

When administrators are confronted with the costs of doing business, one of the factors that they must consider is the price of locum staffing. Can facilities afford to bridge gaps in permanent employment or cover temporary needs with locums? Can administrators afford to bring in additional short-term staffing when there’s an acute or unexpected need?

Temporary staffing needs are often urgent and always important. Administrators want quality providers who can help weather any gap in coverage. But with the cost of locum services, the responsibility for managing revenue and expenses must be acknowledged.
If you’re analyzing the cost and benefit of locum staffing, there are strategies you can use to ensure you’re getting the most benefit from the service you’re buying.

Benefits of Hiring Locum Tenens Providers

Bringing staff in is always going to be an investment, from the cost of the locum provider’s pay to the cost of travel and temporary housing in the community.

However, several factors make locum staffing a good choice on all sides.

  1. If a clinic has a locum provider working, they’re able to see patients and the clinic can bill for services, rather than having a staff vacancy and not being able to accommodate patient needs, resulting in lost revenue.
  2. Having appropriate provider coverage reduces and manages risks that come from poor patient care and avoidable or even tragic adverse outcomes. No one likes to contemplate these scenarios, but the cost of temporary staffing doesn’t begin to compare to the cost of a patient lawsuit.
  3. Consider the savings with no benefits being paid out to the locum provider, no 401K matches, no health insurance, no paid leave, etc.
  4. The most obvious benefit to providing locum coverage is that patients are served, and healthcare needs are managed. There is simply no doubt that appropriate provider staffing is in the patients’ best interests. Whether services provided are routine, urgent, or emergent, patients will have better outcomes with providers on-site at their local facility who can address their needs rather than having to divert to other locations, perhaps at great distances from their home settings.

In addition to the bottom-line savings or revenue that would show up on your financial spreadsheet, other benefits are less tangible but still very real.

Locums Can Make Your Facility Money by Expanding Service Offerings

Locum providers bring many positive benefits in addition to covering your primary location and clinic hours. They can also increase a facility’s capacity for extended services.

  1. Extra staff may allow for longer clinic weekday hours, weekend hours, or added urgent care / walk-in services.
  2. Sports physicals, immunization clinics, wellness fairs, and other community outreach programs are excellent opportunities to invite patients to become familiar with your practice. These events create community goodwill and locum providers can easily staff them as deep knowledge of patients is not necessary, the encounters are typically brief, and many patients can be seen in a short period.
  3. If you have locum providers who can offer specialized procedures that fit with facility capabilities, those services can add revenue.
  4. If the facility has satellite locations, locum staff may be able to increase services being provided outside the main clinic site, and in turn, generate more revenue.

Locums Can Save You Money When Hiring Full-Time

For long-term benefits, inviting a locum provider to work in your facility can be an excellent way to recruit! If you’re using locum staff to fill in for an employee vacancy, you may end up hiring the person who came out to work a temporary job. In effect, you’ve arranged for a working interview, and there’s no better way to know someone will be a good fit for your organization than to have them work with your staff for a few weeks or months. Knowing up front that the provider you’re hiring will be successful in your practice can save enormous costs in relocation expenses and wasted time, rather than experiencing financial loss if you hire someone who is not a good match for your site!

Whether you request a “locum to perm” provider when you arrange the locum assignment, or you have someone who joins your staff as a temporary provider but becomes interested in moving to your community and taking an open position, either approach can work.

Proactive Training, Supervision, and Scheduling Can Save You Money

To ensure you’re billing for services appropriately, set yourself up for success with proactive training, supervision, and scheduling. Here are a few recommendations of things to consider.

  • When you plan a locum assignment, make sure your IT staff is prepared to grant the provider access to your network, electronic record, and any other system that is essential for them to see patients in your facility. Delays in gaining access, scheduling required training, and even having equipment available for them to use can delay their ability to be seeing patients on their first morning at work. Preparation in advance will pave the way for a smooth and productive start!
  • Make sure the locum provider is sufficiently trained on the EMR your facility is using, and that they are documenting and coding appropriately. Many locum providers are proficient on multiple electronic records, but even if they’ve previously used the record you’re utilizing, likely there will be features unique to your facility that they may need to learn.
  • Provide feedback if they are not meeting documentation requirements for coding and billing.
  • Fill their schedule appropriately. (But don’t over-burden locum staff either. Remember, every patient is new to a locum provider, and not knowing resources in the region, perhaps being new to the EMR, and unfamiliar with clinic staff and processes will slow even the best provider until they get comfortable in their temporary practice setting.)
  • Make sure reception and nursing staff know the locum provider is coming to fill in and how long they’ll be working for the facility so they can schedule patients appropriately.
  • Open the locum schedule ahead of time so patients can be booked in.
  • Check what procedures or services the locum might be able to add to your offerings, these may be services that will generate higher billings.
  • When not busy seeing patients, use locums to do staff training and education. This pays off in the long run! Have them mentor new providers on staff if applicable during downtime.

In addition to proactive training, administrators should make sure the locum rates are market compatible with other agencies or providers. But don’t fixate on the rate alone. Sometimes the adage “you get what you pay for” can be seen in the quality of the provider you’ll be offered. You want to be sure that anyone you would consider working in your clinic has great experience, references, skills, and understanding of their role as a locum provider. When you’re choosing an agency to work with, look for quality and reputation as well as a fair rate.

The Cost of Burnout and Your Permanent Staff

It is not uncommon for full-time healthcare providers to be feeling the effects of burnout. If your permanent staff is shorthanded, bringing in locum providers helps avoid burnout and discouragement among the existing team. Knowing that locum staff can share the burden of the daily schedule, call, and holiday coverage allows permanent staff to continue with their lives, vacations, family commitments, and practice parameters that keep them healthy emotionally and physically.

When providers are overworked, can’t get away for vacations and important personal commitments, and feel stressed and pressed for time with their patients, morale, and attitude are always going to suffer. If the situation goes on long enough, the facility is likely to lose more permanent staff due to the negative intangibles. What begins as a provider shortage may spread to other staff as well, creating a downward spiral that can be hard to reverse.

Conclusion

As a locum agency, you would expect Wilderness Medical Staffing to be very supportive of using temporary providers to cover staffing shortages, and we are! But our bias isn’t just about our own company’s revenue, far from it! We’ve seen the difference quality staffing can make in everything from revenue to patient outcomes to the impact on whole communities, and we’re convinced that the benefits of using locum providers far exceed the costs.

If you’re wondering how locum staffing would work in your facility using WMS providers (all of whom are thoroughly screened and personally qualified by our staff through multiple interviews and assessment tools) we would be happy to review your needs, learn about your patient population, location, and any factors that make your site unique. We can recommend providers who would be excellent for your practice, and we stay in close touch with the professionals we place as well as the clients we serve to be sure that our assignments are going well for everyone.

We’ve been in business for over 12 years, and the mission at the heart of all we do is service for patients and remote and rural communities who have provider needs. Let us work with you to prove our confidence in the quality of our providers and the skills they bring to the communities they serve. There’s little doubt you’ll see the benefit of using our providers in your bottom line. There’s no doubt you’ll see the benefit in your patients and their lives!

How Healthcare Facilities Can Use Locum Tenens to Avoid Provider Burnout

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It’s no secret that the healthcare industry is currently experiencing unprecedented levels of healthcare provider shortages. While there are many reasons for this, including increased workloads, lack of work-life balance, an aging population, and a lack of incoming students, burnout among healthcare providers is at an all-time high since the COVID-19 pandemic. As a healthcare administrator, it can be difficult to create solutions for this dire issue. However, finding strategic ways to use locum tenens in your staffing mix can be a simple resolution to avoid provider burnout.

What Provider Burnout Can Look Like

Working without regular time off and the additional stressors of being a full-time healthcare provider leads to burnout, without a doubt. Burnout has many faces: anger, frustration, apathy, loss of attention to detail, a visible attitude of “what’s the use?” and unhealthy coping behaviors. When one person feels burnout and begins to show it, the negativity spreads and influences others. Burnout can become toxic and lead to low morale in the whole workplace.

The other side of this is when providers display an attitude of taking care of themselves regardless of the impact on others. When you have one or two providers who do this, and one or two who feel guilt or pressure if they take time away, that’s a recipe for anger and resentment. Providers who end up feeling “stuck” with call on major holidays or have more than their fair share of weekend call will be acutely aware of the situation, no doubt of that.

If the practice managers are reluctant to use locum coverage, even when staff are out for planned absences, some people may feel pressure to forgo time away. They realize their absence will create a hardship for the rest of the providers, and they feel guilty for taking time off. The knowledge that they’ll get “behind” with their patient load or concern that patients who need to be seen won’t be able to get an appointment can also be a burden, and impact willingness to take time off, causing more of a threat of burnout.

Incorporating Locum Tenens Within Your Practice Model

While there are many strategies and tools to use to address provider burnout within your healthcare facility, considering your practice model should be a starting point. Clinic managers have a wide variety of practice models to choose from, and there are many factors to consider. But whatever the model, eventually, the practice will need additional help.

Locum tenens coverage is traditionally used when a practice has an open position or a longer provider absence, say two weeks or more. While day-to-day staffing for patient care is always needed, additional support may be critical if the practice covers call with their local providers.
Locum support isn’t just for times when you have permanent staff out of office, or you have a staff vacancy. You may want to bring in additional help if you’re making a major change to your clinic processes, such as converting to a new electronic health record, making significant changes to your staffing model, or when you have a community health need that is greater than usual.

You may be accustomed to thinking of using locum providers only when absolutely necessary.

But what if you use that resource strategically?

Creating Your Rotation Schedule

Avoid provider burnout You could use any rotation schedule that makes sense for the locum providers you’re working with and your needs. You could choose to have two people alternate, each working a month on, month off. You could choose to cover a few weeks each quarter with more than one locum provider if you have multiple permanent staff scheduled to be off at the same time. And you can set up shorter rotations…perhaps you have a provider who is with you each quarter for a set period and who shares regular rotation time with another one or two providers.

Although you can’t forecast when you’re going to have an uptick in flu or seasonal illness, you may want to consider adding staffing in times of historically higher patient volumes, or for example, during a time when you’re making a push to see all your diabetic patients or meet some other metric, and know you’ll need help to meet that goal. Look at any major events or push your scheduling and consider if having an additional provider on hand would make things easier and smoother. Any large change or event at your facility can add to the stress of permanent providers, potentially leading to burnout. Finding ways to mitigate friction points during these high-stress events can keep them at your facility.

Locum providers know when they arrive, they have a limited amount of time to work in the practice. They’re typically not going to get involved in community or office politics; they come prepared to work and view the experience as a time of being “on.” Of course, it’s helpful to discuss call schedules and expectations with your locum providers. You don’t want to treat them poorly or unfairly by putting too much of a burden on them. But generally, if a locum provider is working, they want to cover weekends and holidays. That’s part of the job, and they know that. If you have two locum providers on-site at the same time, that’s even better, they can potentially share the bulk of call and really take that pressure off the permanent staff.

Leave Full-Time Positions Open to Staff with Locum Tenens

Perhaps you have a practice model that has four full-time provider positions and requires call coverage. In small communities, particularly if climate and location are factors, it can be challenging to keep full-time providers, and it’s equally difficult if you make up your shortfall with individuals who are unfamiliar with the community and practice. Having a new locum provider come in every time you need coverage can be tiring and frustrating to everyone: the provider who has to ask questions about everything, perhaps learn a new EMR, and get to know the area; and the staff who have to answer, educate, and bring the locum provider up to speed on patient issues, clinic protocols, and getting acquainted with a new place.

One way to staff that helps with both these issues is to intentionally leave one FTE open and fill that vacancy with rotating, regularly returning providers who will get to know your patients, become familiar with your staff and processes, and help to smooth other gaps in coverage when you have someone out on vacation, family leave, etc. Allocating the funds you would have spent on a permanent provider to pay for multiple locum providers and/or sequential locum rotations throughout the year can be a strategic win, and you may not even see an appreciable difference in costs between the two models.

Your model of using one FTE to pay for locum coverage likely won’t allow for two locum providers all the time, but there may be weeks when you can get by with less staff, and other times when you’ll need the additional help. You may choose to staff with a bit of a shortage at times to allow for extra help during seasons of higher need.

I’ve seen this exact model work well over a number of years in multiple sites. The permanent staff benefit, the locum providers who rotate benefit, and most of all, the patients benefit.
You can also scale up or down, depending on the number of FTEs allocated to your practice. While no model fits every situation, use the examples given here to assess your staffing needs and think creatively. How can you make locum staffing part of your strategy to combat burnout and other administrative issues, and not just an inconvenient, expensive solution when it’s forced on you?

The Cost of a Full-Time Provider vs. a Locum Tenens

When you bring a permanent provider to join a practice there are many fixed costs to consider. You may be using a search firm and advertising; you may have multiple interviews, including site visits. When you choose someone to move to your area, you’ll pay relocation costs, likely a placement fee. You’ll likely pay a sign-on bonus. For a permanent provider, you have the overhead of benefits and salary, perhaps assistance with loan repayment or other incentives. The long-term gain is that you (hopefully) have someone who will become part of your community for several years, maybe even the rest of their career. You expect to hire a provider who will grow with your practice and provide continuity of care for patients, someone who will eventually have valuable historical knowledge and insight, based on a long-term presence.

While the benefits of having permanent providers (whether full-time or part-time) on staff are indisputable, there may be other costs, far beyond the number that shows up on a spreadsheet.

When you look at the costs of having a locum provider on site, of course, you’re paying a premium rate for them as well as travel and lodging costs. However, you’re not paying benefits and relocation costs, assisting with loan repayment, or other incentives used to attract permanent staff. You’re not paying a sign-on bonus, annual bonus, or productivity pay. Your locum costs are fixed and can be budgeted and forecasted to make strategic use manageable.

You may not need a locum provider to be present at all times, but you should have a low bar for bringing someone in to help support your permanent staff. When your permanent providers feel appreciated and cared for, you’re building relationships that can truly be long-term, and you’re combating provider burnout. The cost of locum staffing as a part of that support system is minimal compared to the potential return.

How Does Using Locum Tenens Coverage Help With Burnout?

In the model described above, three permanent providers are regularly supported by rotating locum providers who make up the fourth FTE. Having a minimum of two, and up to four or five providers who work a few times throughout the year keeps fresh energy coming in the door.

When someone is always rotating in, the locum provider will usually be happy to take a disproportionate number of days on call because they’re (usually) paid an additional sum to be on call. When you have the same locum providers returning to the practice and community regularly, they get to know the staff and patients. Their familiarity will take longer to achieve, but eventually, they’ll be less like a locum provider and more like permanent staff in that regard.

Use locum staff to give permanent providers a lifestyle that allows them to have regular vacations, holidays with family, and the ability to see patients without feeling overwhelmed. Use locum staff to handle the problems of the day that need urgent care or same-day appointments. Permanent staff are the ones who should be seeing patients with chronic diseases and complex needs if both permanent and locum staff are working.

Having reliable and known providers you can bring in if you have an unexpected absence is a win too. If a permanent provider has an unplanned departure or life event, that’s stressful enough. Having a few providers in the wings who can quickly be part of a solution is another benefit to intentionally building a locum pool and then utilizing it regularly. No worries about credentialing or getting a new person up to speed…just call your account executive and ask for your regular locum providers. Let them know what you need. If you’ve built good relationships you’ll be far ahead of the situation.

How to Keep the Locum Providers From Burning Out

avoid provider burnoutEven locum tenens can be subject to burnout. To keep your healthcare providers engaged and happy, here are a few tips that will keep them coming back to your facility, eager to work.

To help avoid burnout, foster a sense of belonging, even though the locum providers and staff know there’s no contractual commitment. That means that you include the locum providers in clinic social gatherings and community events. They may not be able to attend everything but let them know they’re welcome.

Provide housing that is comfortable and meets expectations. Don’t ask a locum provider to stay where you wouldn’t want to stay yourself. In some situations, it may be a good long-term strategy to have dedicated clinic housing set aside for locum needs. In other scenarios, you may be able to rent an apartment or extended-stay hotel space that’s sufficient.

We have a whole article about welcoming locum tenens into your facility, which you can find here.

Conclusion

By incorporating locum tenens in your rotations, you also have a chance to see if you and your staff are compatible with the locum provider. If you find someone who’s a great fit with your staff and they’re willing to become part of a rotating pool, that’s wonderful! If you’re not a good match, you don’t have to repeat the experience. Keep looking for the two to four providers you want to have in your pool and invite them back regularly.

At Wilderness Medical Staffing, we have so many providers who would be excellent choices for the type of rotation model described here, helping to alleviate burnout of your full-time staff! If you’re considering how to use locum providers to be more creative and strategic with staffing, reach out to our team to review your clinic needs and your wish list for your provider model. We’d love to be part of creating a stable and reliable pool for you, and we’re always willing to work with the needs and unique situations of our clients.

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How to Build a Successful Locum Tenens Provider Rotation

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The following article was authored by Sheila Gibson, WMS Account Executive. Sheila has over 15 years of experience working with healthcare facilities in Alaska.

Managing a healthcare facility is challenging in the best of times and keeping qualified providers on staff is one of the most difficult tasks in today’s healthcare environment. Sooner or later most healthcare organizations rely on locum providers to fill in when there are gaps in coverage, especially gaps that can be planned for. Whatever the reason is that you need additional coverage, here are our recommendations for how to build a successful locum tenens provider rotation.

Reasons Why You Might Need Locum Tenens Healthcare Providers

Many facilities augment full-time staff with locum coverage to fill vacation slots, cover FMLA leave, military deployments, position vacancies and keep up with increased seasonal demand. Additionally, when you know a provider has an upcoming surgery or military deployment, or someone is retiring or leaving the clinic practice, you can prepare in advance. All these scenarios create the perfect opportunity to begin building a locum tenens provider rotation model that can serve your facility’s needs indefinitely.

Begin by Assessing Your Current Staffing Model

To build a successful locum tenens provider rotation, you need to start by assessing your staffing model and the number of providers you’d like to have working.

Factor in Time Off

Think through what your current staffing model looks like and how many people it takes to cover a week (or a month) of clinic, ER, and after-hours call. Be sure to factor in annual paid time off, continuing education leave, sick leave, military leave, etc.

The reality is that each full-time provider you have on staff will likely have six weeks or more time off each year when you combine scheduled leave employees receive.

Multiply the number of providers by the number of weeks they’re due for leave, and you can estimate the FTE you will potentially need to cover. When you do the math, you quickly realize that you can be fully staffed according to your clinic model, and still have significant time to cover for clinic and call.

locum tenens provider rotationConsider How Your Facility is Structured

Every facility in every community is different, so you need to think through how your facility, in specific, is structured.

Consider the following:

  • Does your provider staff manage after-hours call?
  • Do you use some providers for clinic only and others for ER and call only?
  • Does your clinic offer full-range primary care?
  • Does the position that is coming open leave your clinic in need of a provider with a specific focus/specialty?
  • Do you provide pediatric care?

Use this information to begin identifying the types of locum tenens providers who could be useful to fill in staffing gaps that may occur. This will help you to figure out what type of coverage you need. Some facilities will use different locum tenens providers for different needs in coverage, so having options is helpful.

Add Time for the Unexpected

Plan for flexibility. While some providers may not use their full allotment of PTO, others will have unexpected health issues, family issues, or some other situation that will take them out of the schedule without a lot of warning. Thinking through the “unknown” scenarios ahead of time and planning for options to overcome them in advance can save your facility money, and you unneeded stress when the unexpected occurs.

Think Through the “What Else”

You’ll also want to think through the less obvious things. For instance, do you specifically need a male or female provider to round out your staffing mix? Are you set up to provide housing and vehicle for one or more locum providers? If so, how many can you accommodate at once?

If you’ve successfully used a locum in the past, take into consideration the things that worked or didn’t work when you’ve used them and use that information as part of your process.

Keep these things in mind as you begin to calculate how much coverage (people, house, specialties, etc.) you’ll need to help your facility run with a full staff.

Nail Down the Logistics

When you have a good sense of the type of coverage you need and the amount of time you’re looking to fill, consider a best-case scenario and a bare minimum scenario. If you want to augment your staffing with more than one locum provider, but budget or lodging or some other factor is a barrier, look at your staffing calendar to determine how you can best deploy the number of providers you have to work with.

Dealing with Long Gaps in Coverage

If you have a long gap of time to cover unless you find someone who’ll commit to the whole assignment, you may have to use two or three providers in sequence, one at a time, to keep the locum position filled or to prevent overwhelming your housing or vehicle resources. You’ll create a provider pool of recurring providers.

When you talk with a prospective locum provider in a pre-assignment interview, let them know you’re looking for a recurring presence. Set an expectation up front that if the provider is a good fit, the first assignment could be the beginning of an ongoing relationship. (Better yet, let your Wilderness Medical Staffing account executive know you’d like to establish a locum pool and we can help you connect with providers looking for just that sort of rotating presence.)

locum tenens provider rotationBenefits of Recurring Providers and Provider Pools

We’ve found that adding recurring providers to your locum tenens pools is not only helpful to your facility, but it provides consistency of care for your community and creates steady, but flexible work for your locum tenens providers. Here are some additional reasons why using recurring providers is always a win for your facility.

  • After a provider is in your facility for the first time, they don’t have to re-discover how you operate your clinic, and that takes a training and education burden off your staff.
  • The provider learns your EMR and is already familiar with return trips.
  • The provider gets to know the permanent staff and patients.
  • The provider gets acquainted with the community in general and gets familiar with the climate, recreation in the area, etc.
  • The staff knows what to expect from the provider’s practice style and experience.
  • The initial questions about where to find, how to do, who to call, etc., have been addressed.
  • Returning to a previous location is much easier for the provider when they know the clinic housing, amenities to expect, and travel route.

With a rotating provider pool model, occasionally someone will take a permanent job, retire, or for one reason or another, drop out of the mix. But while you look to replace that provider, if you have two or three people who are still in your rotating pool, you should be able to introduce a new person to the group without too much disruption.

Many people work locum jobs as their main source of income like having recurring assignments, for all the reasons discussed above. If you make providers aware of your goal of creating a rotating pool, they may even have suggestions to offer for someone who would be a good fit for your facility and staff. Be vocal about your goals. Providers share opportunities with their friends, as you’d expect.

Structuring Recurring Locum Tenen Provider Rotation Schedules

You can create a regular locum tenens provider rotation cycle, such as a month-on, month-off routine; or you can opt for episodic coverage, perhaps a few times a year as you have needs. Either way, using the same providers regularly can benefit everyone, and gives patients familiar names and faces to encounter, even if the provider is only in your community occasionally throughout the year.

When you identify a provider or two who you’d like to have return, it would be helpful to discuss your scheduling needs with them (if possible, even while they’re on site) and determine if they’re available to return when you need coverage.

One issue with temporary duty staff is that just about the time the person gets comfortable and knows their way around the clinic, it’s time for them to leave. When you create a rotating pool of providers, you overcome that issue with repeated visits.

Considerations for Solo Provider Sites

If you’re staffing a solo site, it can be even more critical to have providers who become established and familiar with the location and patients. If you create a pool of people who have worked at your site and are familiar enough to slide in easily and pick up where they left off from their last trip, the stress of having locum providers decreases significantly.

How to Address Housing for Locum Tenens

A difference between your full-time staff and your locum tenens is that they will need to have a temporary place to stay when they are working at your facility. While figuring this out upfront is important, don’t let it be a deterring factor in working with locum tenens.

Even in some of the most austere and remote villages in Alaska, our clients and our team can secure housing for locum tenens.

locum tenens provider rotationHousing Necessities

Whether your organization owns housing or rents lodging, please be sure that the space is clean, outfitted with basic supplies for the kitchen, bedroom, and bath; and that you’ve identified a point of contact for any housing issues or questions that may arise when a provider is in residence. Housing can be basic and still clean and comfortable; that’s the minimum standard you should use.

To be most welcoming and increase the chances of provider interest in returning, consider providing WiFi, TV, and any additional amenities/comforts that are reasonable options. Remember, people who travel to your community to work are usually a long way from home and family, and especially in bad weather, need access to the internet and enough “comforts of home” to make their space welcoming.

Get Creative with Housing

Depending on where your facility is and the type of facility you work at, you may have simple housing options. Perhaps an apartment or small house nearby can be used as provider accommodations.

However, if lodging for locum providers is a problem, get creative in thinking about options. Is there a hotel or Airbnb in the community you could rent for temporary lodging? Does your clinic have a space that could be used for a private room for a locum provider? If so, be sure there’s an option for kitchen facilities, showers, etc. Another option is using an RV for provider housing. Is there an RV in the community that can be used?

If you need to get creative with housing, be sure that your healthcare providers will be able to get the rest and privacy they need, so they can perform their job at your facilities to the best of their abilities.

Using Google Calendar to Schedule Your Locum Tenens Provider Rotation

One simple tool that can make scheduling your locum tenens easy for everyone is Google Calendar. Here is a simple setup of how to use the calendar. For a more in-depth guide on how to use Google Calendar, reference this guide.

  1. Create a shared calendar using color blocking for each person.
  2. Add work dates and any pertinent notes for permanent staff as well as locum staff.
  3. Invite everyone who is scheduled on the calendar, as well as essential support staff, to have access to view using each person’s Gmail address.
  4. Edit the permissions so only select people can add to or edit the calendar, but everyone can view and keep up to date on who is working when.

Google calendars can be viewed by anyone who has the link to access, regardless of whether they’re on-site or not. The calendar app can be added to phones and makes checking the schedule to see who’s working, who’s off, and other relevant information, very simple, from any location.

Once you have your locum tenens provider rotation scheduled and listed on your Google Calendar, you can work through the details of who you’ll use for scheduled patient visits, who will be on call, who will cover same-day/walk-in patients, etc. This makes managing the clinic, especially in a multi-provider setting, easier for everyone, particularly for staff who are scheduling appointments and managing patient flow.

By doing some work in advance to plan with the provider, you can begin to build a staff calendar several months in advance and be more responsive to last-minute changes or gaps when you know who you have to work with.

In Conclusion

Strive to be a facility with a reputation that attracts good people. The surest way to create a successful rotating locum model is to create an environment that is attractive in every way: welcoming, organized, responsive, offers competitive pay and encourages temporary staff to return.

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How To Welcome a Locum Tenens to Your Healthcare Facility

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It doesn’t matter if you work at a critical access hospital, industrial facility, rural healthcare clinic, or tribal medical center; when a new locum tenens is about to come into your location, they want to feel welcome and ready to get to work.

First impressions count for both the healthcare facility and the locum tenens. Making a good one can create lasting relationships between both parties for years to come. As an administrator or supervisor, it’s your responsibility to prepare your healthcare facility for your new arrival.

For clients who work with Wilderness Medical Staffing, we’ll work with you and your team to get more information and outline important information about your facility before the provider arrives. We communicate this information directly to the locum tenens, so they know what to expect upon arrival.

Here’s how to welcome a locum tenens to your healthcare facility.

Think Like a Locum Tenens

Many WMS clients have used locum providers extensively and are well acquainted with all that involves. But others may be less familiar with the use of “temporary duty” staffing or may have their own staffing changes and have someone new in the position of liaison for locum providers.

Most people have had the experience of being new to a community, the stranger in town. And everyone who’s ever started a job has gone through some iteration of the “first-day” hurdles…learning names and faces, orientation, figuring out the unspoken nuances of the workplace.

Think back to those times in your life, and then, imagine you’re a medical provider, arriving to offer medical care to a community for a few days, weeks, or even months. Imagine you’re about to become an immediate and vital member of a clinic team, maybe the only provider on-site, with varying levels of support available. Imagine you’re about to integrate into a community as a stranger, but someone who will quickly know the medical needs of everyone who walks in the clinic door.

Locum providers have a steep learning curve, from the moment they arrive for their assignment, and experienced providers know that going in. But whether it’s the first time being a locum provider or the 50th, some things don’t change. Everyone needs some information upfront to have the best experience possible, and everyone appreciates a warm welcome.

What can staff and community members do to help the locum provider settle in and make the experience exceptional? Many things!

As the saying goes, “begin at the beginning.”

Outline Clear Assignment Expectations

We always encourage providers to be flexible when arriving at a new facility. Every facility is set up and run differently, so having the providers enter an assignment with an open mind is essential to their success.

As the facility, you can welcome a locum tenens to your healthcare facility by having clear parameters for the assignment ready ahead of time. When working with a staffing agency like Wilderness Medical Staffing, our account executives will make sure assignment details such as duration, shift length, pay rates, patient volume, etc. are agreed upon by the facility and the provider before contracts are signed.

It’s your job to stick to these parameters and communicate with the provider (and the staffing agency) if any changes need to happen.

What to Communicate with Providers Before they Arrive

Think about the information that would be helpful to communicate before the locum provider arrives. Depending on the location and size of community, your setting may be quite different from the provider’s home. Here are a few suggestions of things you should communicate with your WMS account executive, so they can inform the provider before they begin packing for arrival at your facility.

Climate

Climate can have a big effect on the clothing and gear they should bring with them. Understanding the climate ahead of time can be extremely beneficial

Clinic Attire

What is the provider expected to wear while working? Are scrubs OK or should they bring business casual attire? Do you have other expectations for what they wear while working? If so, communicate that information.

Shopping

We understand that many rural locations, especially in Alaska, require additional forethought before arriving on assignment. Explaining your options for grocery stores can be particularly important, so providers know if they can purchase groceries in the community, if they need to bring food, or if they need to order it to be shipped in from a larger city’s grocery store.

Recreational Facilities

Will providers have access to various recreational facilities while working at your facility? Do you have access to a gym, pool, or other types of recreational activities?

Recreational Opportunities

Similar to recreational facilities, what other types of recreational opportunities are available near your facility? Will there be areas to hike, fish, or participate in other outdoor activities? Providers often appreciate rural locations because of the outdoor recreation, so this can sometimes be a selling point for your facility, too!

Cell Phone Service Carrier

It will be important to explain to providers what cell phone service is like at your facility since service can be less reliable in remote areas, so it’s important to communicate this ahead of time. If providers should acquire a specific type of phone before arriving on assignment, this needs to be discussed.

In-House Entertainment

Since your locum tenens provider will be living near your facility, will they have a TV available in their home away from home? Should they be prepared to provide their own streaming device, such as a Roku?

Communicate directly, or through Wilderness staff, so the provider can pack appropriately and do any advanced planning that would be helpful.

To summarize, here’s your pre-assignment checklist to communicate with the locum tenens provider (or their staffing agency).

  • Climate
  • Clinic Attire
  • Shopping
  • Recreational Facilities
  • Recreational Opportunities
  • Cell Phone Service Carrier
  • In-House Entertainment

Secure Housing 

locum tenens housing

Many locum tenens providers take assignments lasting weeks to months out of their year. The housing that your facility sets up for them truly does become a home away from home. While most locum tenens providers aren’t expecting luxurious living conditions, the housing needs to be adequate, at a minimum.  

WMS provides information on the type of housing for each assignment location and will also confirm if the provider will have a vehicle. The information we provide will cover questions about kitchen facilities, internet access, if there is a washer/dryer in housing, and if linens/bedding are provided. Providers will also want to know if housing is private, has shared common areas, is dorm-style, or other accommodations.  

The housing should make the locum tenens providers feel like your facility cares about them and their overall well-being. You’ll want to supply a space that’s clean and efficient. A comfortable and clean bed is a must, plus assuring that the housing will be quiet for proper rest between shifts. Having a supply of dishes and kitchen essentials is important for assignments where the provider will be living for multiple days at a time.  

You’ll also want to be sure that their safety is considered. You should have doors and windows that lock properly. The housing needs to have adequate heating and cooling options, so the provider is comfortable. They also will require clean water and working plumbing.  

One of the most important things your housing should have is internet access. With providers often traveling hundreds to thousands of miles to work with your facility, having good internet access can help them to feel connected to their normal life while providing entertainment for their time off.  

Share with providers who to call if there are any issues with housing, such as missing items or repairs that need to be made during their stay.  

If there is anything unique to your housing or community that WMS should share with providers coming to your site, please let us know. (Please inform us if there have been significant changes to lodging or amenities. We update our client profiles and try to stay current so the information we give to providers is accurate.)

Travel Logistics

locum tenens travel

When working with WMS, we facilitate travel coordination with the provider on behalf of the facility. Your locum tenens provider should have everything they need to arrive for their assignment.

WMS will also confirm with clinic staff that someone will be on hand to meet the provider when they arrive and connect them with their lodging and vehicle. If the provider is new to the community, we encourage clients to arrange for the person picking them up to give them a community tour. (See below for more information about what to include in their tour.)

After arrival, be sure the provider knows the location of the clinic and what time they are expected to report for their first day of the assignment.

It is also helpful to the provider to have a general idea of the best ways to get places on their days off.

Provider Orientation

Many of the facilities we work with prefer to hold a provider orientation, usually the day before an assignment starts. Often, the orientation is an opportunity to tour the facility, meet some of the other staff members, and learn more about the resources you’ll have available to you.

When the provider arrives at the clinic for their first day, it’s helpful to have a schedule for orientation already set and printed for them.

During orientation, you should tour the medical facility, including showing them where the emergency room is. Explain any Medivac procedures, review x-ray and lab equipment, and break down how the facility typically operates. If there are any unique protocols to your facility, share that information too.

Not all facilities are set up with emergency video calling, such as what Avel eCare provides, but if your facility is, demonstrating to a new locum tenens how this software works when they need it can be a huge plus!

Don’t forget to train providers on your facility’s EHR/EMR equipment. Whether your facility uses Epic, Cerner, or a different system, the locum tenens provider must have at least basic knowledge to properly document patient notes and look up patient records.

To summarize, you’ll want to be sure to include these things in your orientation/to-do list for your locum tenens provider:

  • Introductions to all staff
  • Tour the facility – including where the break room and access to things like a staff refrigerator are
  • Provide an ID badge, key card, and computer access, including pharmacy access for after-hours medication needs
  • Emergency room set up
  • Review x-ray and lab equipment
  • Explain how to arrange a Medivac transport
  • Emergency video calling capabilities (if applicable)
  • EHR training
  • Review any additional unique protocols of your facility

Share Contact Details 

Give your locum tenens provider the names and roles of key staff so they know who is responsible for various tasks/needs.

Assuring the provider knows things like who to call for a consultation and other beneficial contact information can be invaluable information when they are caring for patients. In addition, share contact information for the next level of care facility, and other community names and contact information they might need, such as EMT staff, police, state troopers, behavioral health, etc.

You’ll also want to share information about who will be on call with the provider and review scheduling.

Do you have an IT department or person? If so, introducing them to your locum tenens can be beneficial.

Make note of this list of important contacts to share:

  • Provide contact numbers for key personnel, including the chain of command – who do they call if there’s an emergency
  • Next level of care facility contact information
  • Community names and phone numbers – EMT, police, state troopers, behavioral health, etc.
  • IT support specialist

Upcoming Office Plans

Don’t forget to include the locum provider in upcoming office plans. If your staff has potluck lunches, birthday celebrations, or you’re doing something special for an upcoming holiday or event (Superbowl party, Halloween costume contest, holiday gift exchange, etc.) make sure they know about it in advance…it’s no fun to be left out, and also awkward to be included if you’re not prepared to participate.

At the same time, locum providers may not be able to take part as fully in some events due to work or call schedules, lack of supplies (they may not be able to participate in gift exchanges or costume parties, for example), or personal preference. Be sure to acknowledge that invitations to clinic events are just that, with no pressure to attend.

Community Information

locum tenens community

Many of the communities we serve are vastly different than what our locum tenens healthcare providers are accustomed to. Many providers permanently live in urban or suburban areas, so taking an assignment somewhere like a Native American village can be a new experience.

Getting to experience new communities and locations is often why locum tenens enjoy these assignments, though. At WMS, we provide as much detail to the providers about the community as we can, but it’s not the same as them getting to the assignment and seeing it first-hand.

When giving your locum tenens a tour of the community, a few things that are helpful to include on the tour are:

  • The location and business hours of the local market
  • The location of any recreation centers or community center facilities
  • Information about churches in the community
  • Notify the providers about community safety. In rural communities, the local wildlife can be dangerous when hiking alone, for instance.
  • Any specifics at the moment: approaching storms, a change in local transportation, an event that’s impacting the local community such as a celebration or funeral. Some communities and businesses may close for events, so sharing this information is valuable.

Some facilities we work with will pair a community member with a locum tenens=to help them to learn more about their surroundings and=the local culture. This can be invaluable for the locum tenens=to feel welcome and =adjust to their new assignment.

Beginning the Assignment

Adding a locum tenens to your healthcare facility can be beneficial for several reasons. Making sure they are prepared to successfully execute their assignment when they begin to work will make things smoother for the locum tenens, your staff, and your patients.

As the provider works through their assignment, it’s helpful to have your facility manager or staff contact check in with them to be sure they’re doing well both personally and professionally. WMS also checks in with providers and client contacts during assignments through surveys, personal emails, or texts.

A local manager may see a need or concern before WMS staff. We encourage our clients to communicate with WMS account executives and the provider on-site to ensure the best outcomes for everyone.

Conclusion

Ideally, the providers WMS sends on assignment will be a great fit for the facility and community. WMS often returns a provider to the same location, cementing an excellent working relationship between client and provider. This is the sweet spot for everyone when a provider and clinic staff are well acquainted and there are no surprises.

That said, even if a provider has been to your facility many times, there may be changes from one stay to the next. Shifts in staffing, management, equipment, call schedules, etc., still need to be communicated, if not before arrival, then at the beginning of the assignment.

Locum providers offer support in so many ways…taking part in the daily clinic schedule, the call schedule, and bridging staff vacancies when facilities are recruiting, or when permanent staff is out on leave. They’re a vital part of sustaining health care facilities in remote and small locations and deserve a warm and appreciative welcome.

Yes, they’re paid to be in your facility and may be very self-sufficient. But remember, they may be far from home, family, and everything familiar. Do your part to help them integrate into your environment and have a great experience. That’s the best way to ensure they’ll be open to returning when you have another need.

What have you done to create a warm welcome for your locum staff? Please share anything that your facility is doing that is unique! We’d love to pass on creative ideas to our clients, and we’re always looking for anything we can suggest to improve the locum experience for everyone involved!

If you’re interested in learning how Wilderness Medical Staffing can help with your staffing needs, contact us. We’re happy to answer any questions you have.

We staff rural & remote locations. Learn More.

Emergency Courtesy License: What You Need to Know

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(Please note: Emergency Courtesy Licenses through the Alaska Board of Nursing have been discontinued at this time. Emergency Courtesy Licenses through the Alaska State Medical Board expire on 7/1/2022. Previously issued ECLs will be valid until their expiration date, but new ECLs will not be issued.)

With COVID-19 shaping a new landscape for healthcare providers, certain prerequisites for working in the field of medicine have also changed. As a staffing agency, it’s part of our job to keep up with healthcare trends, which often means staying abreast of different requirements per state that we staff. One of the biggest changes in the last few years has been the adoption of an Emergency Courtesy License (or Courtesy License) for NPs, PAs, and physicians in the state of Alaska. In this article, we’ll break down what an Emergency Courtesy License is, how to attain one, and why they are useful for both healthcare providers and facilities hiring healthcare staff.

What is an Emergency Courtesy License?

According to the State of Alaska, for physicians and PAs, “an Emergency Courtesy License authorizes an individual to practice in Alaska during the period in which the Medical Board has determined an urgent health crisis exists.” Parameters for nurses and nurse practitioners are similar.

The emergency courtesy license is a temporary license for medical practitioners to practice medicine for a set duration of time under certain emergency conditions within the State of Alaska.

The license is good for 120 consecutive days, and then must be renewed for an additional 120 days. The emergency courtesy license can only be renewed once, for a total of 240 days (about 8 months).

We recommend that you consider the Emergency Courtesy License a temporary license and encourage all providers to also apply for a general medical or nursing license if you’re interested in working in Alaska, as well.

What Qualifies as an Emergency Condition to Attain an ECL?

At the time of this article being written, the only condition to be granted an Emergency Courtesy License is that you must be working to provide support for the COVID-19 pandemic.

If you’re a nurse practitioner or nurse, you will need to specify the reasons you will be working at the facility, including information about testing, treating COVID patients, or filling in for providers who are out sick due to COVID.

You must also submit information about the timeframe of your assignment and the location of the assignment. For nurse practitioners and nurses, this information must be filled out and submitted with your application.

emergency courtesy licenseWhy are Emergency Courtesy Licenses Useful?

Since COVID-19 hit, it’s been difficult to meet the needs of healthcare facilities promptly. Emergency Courtesy Licenses help us to bridge the gap and fill open positions sooner.

Emergency Courtesy Licenses are helpful to both medical providers and the facilities medical providers take assignments in. They allow medical providers to take assignments with less lead time going into the assignment. It helps facilities to fill open positions when there are more urgent staffing needs, which happens frequently in remote areas of Alaska. For the communities in need of medical providers, it helps to get high-quality medical providers licensed in Alaska, so they have the medical resources they need.

Emergency Courtesy Licenses are also helpful to staffing agencies like ours because we can market ECL-qualified job orders to providers who may not be licensed in Alaska yet. Again, helping to fill assignments with the best professionals for the job.

For all professions, Emergency Courtesy Licenses will be granted weeks or even months sooner than a permanent professional license.

How to Acquire an Emergency Courtesy License

Your profession will determine how you acquire an Emergency Courtesy License. Physicians and physician assistants can apply for ECLs through the Alaska State Medical Board. Nurse Practitioners and nurses will apply through the Alaska Board of Nursing.

The form fields differ slightly based on the profession you’re applying with, however, we have included a few guides on our Helpful Tools page to help you with applying. (See: Alaska Forms & Documentation > Emergency Courtesy Licenses.)

Before you get too far into the process, here are a few things you’ll want to know.

Nurse Practitioner Guidelines

If you’re an NP, you’ll need to obtain an emergency courtesy license as an RN and as an NP. To do this, you’ll fill out the application twice, but in Part II of the application, you’ll select RN on one version and APRN on the second. Please note that the fee for both applications is $200.

In addition, as an NP, you’ll need to complete Part V, “Documentation of ‘Urgent Situation.’” This is where you’ll need to include the location that you’ll be working at, the dates of your assignment, and why your assignment is COVID-related that were outlined earlier.

Physician Assistant and Physician Guidelines

Filling out the paperwork for a physician or physician assistant is slightly easier than that of a nurse practitioner, however, the fees are a bit more costly. You’ll have a non-refundable application fee of $100 and the Courtesy License Fee of $150. If you hold an active Alaska professional license and a DEA registration, then you’ll also be required to register with the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), which is another $25.

One caveat for physicians and physician assistants: you will need to have a valid medical license in the state where you physically reside for your ECL to be approved.

We recommend that all providers have an up-to-date DEA registration with the State of Alaska.

How Long Does It Take to Get the ECL Application Approved?

This can vary based on many factors, but we’re finding that for physicians and physician assistants, it’s taking about a month at the time of this writing.

For nurse practitioners, they are usually granted within 3 weeks, compared to the several months a standard license will take to be approved.

As a reminder, you should still apply for a permanent medical or nursing license and you also need to have a valid DEA registration.

Where to Apply

Physicians and physician assistants – Begin your application here.

Nurse practitioners – Begin your application here.

 

If you’re interested in working in Alaska as an NP, PA, or physician, view our Open Jobs page. If you’re curious about whether a job qualifies for a provider to have an Emergency Courtesy License, reach out to our recruiters for additional information about the position.

locum tenens jobs

 

Why Hire Locum Tenens for Your Rural Healthcare Facility

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Staffing a healthcare facility with highly skilled medical providers is critical to its success. For hiring managers or medical directors who work in rural healthcare facilities, sometimes finding the right medical providers to fit into your facility and the community can be difficult. That’s why you should choose to hire locum tenens for your rural healthcare facility.

Locum tenens medical providers come with certain distinct benefits, especially in rural settings. Here’s why.

Locum Tenens Create Continuity of Care for Patients

Continuity of care for your patients is important whether you work at a small healthcare facility or a large healthcare consortium. Continuity of care can improve patient outcomes and satisfaction. When healthcare providers take a vacation, resign, or when patient volume increases, having another healthcare provider to take their place or lighten their workload can help to keep your medical facility running smoothly.

This is especially true in a rural setting, where you may only have one or a few healthcare providers on staff. Some of the healthcare facilities we work with only staff locum tenens healthcare providers who are solo capable because the communities they serve are so small. In these types of locations, it’s imperative that the community has a healthcare provider available to help, especially if emergency situations arise.

With locum tenens, you get the benefit of an experienced healthcare provider temporarily taking the place of an existing provider or filling in an opening you may otherwise have a hard time filling.

By hiring locum tenens, you often have a larger pool of talent to pick from because they temporarily fill positions. In rural locations, this can be appealing to medical providers who still wish to have a permanent residence in an urban area, but also enjoy practicing more meaningful medicine in rural locations.

At WMS, we specialize in staffing rural and remote locations with excellent medical providers. Learn more and fill out a staffing request form here.

Locum Tenens Helps to Combat Provider Burnout

Healthcare provider burnout is no secret to anyone in the healthcare industry. Healthcare professionals can get burnt out for a variety of reasons including patient load, bureaucracy, lack of autonomy, hectic work environments, and poor work/life balance. For many healthcare facilities, burnout is the number one reason they decide to hire locum tenens.

Why hire locum tenens in rural healthcare

Photo by WMS contracted provider, Torri P.

According to a report from Dovepress, burnout can cause, “lower patient satisfaction, impaired quality of care, even up to medical errors, potentially ending up in malpractice suits with substantial costs for caregivers and hospitals.”

Since many rural healthcare facilities require emergency medicine providers, burnout can be especially prevalent. In rural locations, burnout can happen due to isolation, as well, which is one reason many rural healthcare facilities often staff locum tenens medical providers.

Giving full-time providers a welcome break in rural healthcare facilities with locum tenens helps providers manage stress and combat many of the reasons they face burnout.

Hiring Locum Tenens Closes Gaps in Provider Coverage

Locum tenens providers give healthcare facilities more flexibility with their provider coverage. Some healthcare facilities use locum tenens to fill in temporarily for a permanent provider who will be away from the facility. Others rotate locum tenens providers into their overall staffing mix with permanent providers. By rotating the providers, there aren’t gaps in provider coverage and the locum tenens can cover the full-time workload of a permanent provider.

Locum tenens can also fill in the gap for the weekend, on-call shifts, and holidays. For healthcare facilities that staff permanent providers, this allows those medical practitioners an often needed, consistent break and a more manageable lifestyle. When the permanent providers are working, they can perform higher-quality healthcare because locum tenens are helping to fill in while they are not on a shift.

This type of scheduling can be a win for the locum tenens, as well. Locum tenens go into the position knowing when they will need to work and what their responsibilities will be once they arrive. If they have agreed to take on-call or holiday shifts, they may be anticipating making more pay for these types of shifts, which can be a great incentive to staff the locum tenens. Additionally, patients won’t lose care and permanent providers will enjoy a better work/life balance due to the locum tenens stepping in.

Hiring Locum Tenens Saves Healthcare Facilities Money

In rural healthcare missed shifts can be a big deal. Since rural facilities are smaller in size than their urban counterparts, the staff size is also smaller. If a medical provider is out sick, on vacation, or unable to cover shifts for certain parts of the day, this can be a burden for the community and healthcare facility.

Why hire locum tenens in rural healthcareFor the healthcare facility, missed shifts equal missed revenue. When providers can’t see patients, they cannot bill for medical services. This means no or lower-income is coming into the medical facility during these downtimes, depending on the additional medical services your facility may offer, such as labs. Staffing locum tenens helps to eliminate this downtime, so your facility can continue to treat patients and bill for those services.

In addition, compared to hiring a full-time permanent provider, with locum tenens, you don’t need to pay for relocation fees, workplace insurance, or other expenses that come with an on-staff employee. Since locum tenens are 1099 contractors at your facility, they are responsible for their insurance. If your facility works with a locum staffing agency, like Wilderness Medical Staffing, we’ll also facilitate “A+” medical malpractice insurance for any medical provider who we staff at your facility.

Locum Tenens Lets You Try New Employees Before Hiring

Sometimes, medical facilities like to trial locum tenens before hiring for permanent positions. Often, these are locum to permanent positions, so the medical provider goes into the position knowing that they may eventually be hired for a permanent role.

In other situations, the facility is intentionally staffing a locum tenens provider, who ends up being a great fit for the facility and a prospective candidate to convert to an on-staff team member. In these instances, facilities will typically buy out the staffing agency’s contract for the healthcare provider.

For rare occurrences that a locum tenens provider isn’t a good fit at your medical facility, it’s often easier to get a different provider to take over the role than it is to fill a permanent position. Especially when working with a staffing agency, like WMS, we handle the heavy lifting of working with the providers to become licensed and credentialed for the specific assignments our clients need to be staffed. We also hold preliminary interviews with the candidates to find the best fit for your team.

In comparison, it’s typically more difficult to hire a permanent provider in a rural location, so if it doesn’t work out, it can be even more costly to your organization. It can also cause more disruption for patient care for your community. Utilizing locum tenens can be a great way to ensure you’re choosing the best permanent provider for the role.

 

Staffing locum tenens for your rural healthcare facility can be a convenient and effective solution for your healthcare staffing needs. We’re here to help you through every step of the process.

We staff rural & remote locations. Learn More.

Now Staffing Healthcare Providers in Wyoming!

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We are so excited to announce that Wilderness Medical Staffing is now staffing healthcare providers at remote and rural healthcare facilities in Wyoming.

The need for medical care, especially in rural and remote locations, continues to grow. Our expansion into Wyoming, allows us to better serve the communities who live there.

For our Wilderness Medical Staffing healthcare providers, this expansion into Wyoming gives them more job openings to choose from, while helping the medical facilities maintain continuity of care with their patients.

Noah McWilliams, WMS co-CEO says, “The natural, rural landscape of Wyoming made it an obvious choice for the next state we wanted to expand into. Since we currently already staff in the northwest United States, expanding our services into Wyoming allows us to offer positions for our existing and new providers who are licensed in that state. It also helps health facilities in Wyoming to staff their facilities so the people who live there can receive high-quality medical care.”

We currently staff locum tenens and permanent healthcare providers including nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and physicians in Montana, Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and Wyoming.

View our open jobs or contact us to work with us.

staff rural and remote locations