Editor’s Note
Physician pay is moving in the right direction, but not fast enough to keep pace with what independent practice actually costs, and not with enough room to negotiate within health systems that have largely standardized their compensation structures. The clinicians who are finding more leverage are increasingly the ones who have stepped outside those constraints. Locum tenens continues to emerge as a primary path for doing that, not just as a supplement but as a career model in its own right.
The decisions that follow from that reality are worth taking seriously. This edition of Locums CME looks at what it takes to start a locum assignment well, how late-career physicians are using locum work to stay engaged without the obligations that have worn them down, and what NPs should know about the career paths available to them. The financial picture is important here too, from understanding reimbursement pressures that affect contract conversations to knowing what disability coverage actually protects you if something goes wrong.
Beneath all of it is a workforce that’s reconsidering its options. Nearly half of physicians surveyed this year said they had thought about leaving practice since January, and the reasons go beyond burnout to include policy shifts, clinical demands, and a growing sense that the traditional model isn’t working for them. Clinicians who want more control over workload, schedule, and earnings are finding that the locum lifestyle offers a real way to reclaim it.
– The Locumpedia Editorial Team
Lead Story
Physician Salary Report 2026: Gains Barely Outpace Inflation
June 25, 2026 | Weatherby Healthcare
Average physician compensation rose 3% last year, putting overall annual pay at $386,000 and specialist pay at $417,000, with eight specialties now topping $500,000 and orthopedics crossing $600,000 for the first time. Sentiment about compensation has improved, with 53% of survey respondents saying they feel fairly compensated, up from 48% the prior year. Even so, the gains barely cleared inflation, and a quarter of doctors say their compensation still doesn’t cover their families’ needs.
That gap is showing up in behavior. Forty percent of physicians now report supplementing their income with outside work, up from 38% in 2024, and locum tenens is one of the primary vehicles. Where permanent employment offers standardized pay structures with limited room to negotiate, locum work gives clinicians a way to pursue better rates and terms on their own.
Regional differences add another dimension. The Midwest posted the highest average physician compensation at $400,000, largely because healthcare employers are competing to attract providers to rural and underserved markets, and pay tends to move with scarcity in those areas. Physicians practicing locum tenens in high-need regions continue to find the clearest opportunity to negotiate from a position of strength.
Your Locums Prescription
Onboarding Tips for Locum Tenens: My Guide to Hit the Ground Running
June 26, 2026 | Aya Locums
A practicing locum CRNA with five years of independent assignment experience makes the case that success in locum tenens starts well before the first shift. The checklist she describes covers credentialing deadlines, EHR and pharmacy access, parking and facility layout, team workflow, and daily expectations, all confirmed before day one. Getting those details in place early reduces first-day friction and allows providers to focus on clinical work rather than logistics.
The broader point is that preparation is a form of professional self-protection. Clinicians who confirm privileges, system access, call expectations, and team roles early are better positioned to perform well and to evaluate whether an agency and facility are organized enough to work with again. A rough start is hard to recover from, and most of what causes it is avoidable with the right questions asked early on.
Locum Tenens Ophthalmology: A Guide for Physicians Considering Retirement
June 26, 2026 | LocumTenens.com
Retirement in ophthalmology tends to happen gradually rather than all at once, and the workforce data supports why. The average age at which eye care physicians leave practice is around 66, 35% of working ophthalmologists are already 65 or older, and projected supply is expected to fall 12% by 2035 while demand rises 24%. Locum tenens offers a useful structure for physicians who want to keep working without long-term obligations, ownership responsibilities, or mandatory call.
The appeal extends beyond ophthalmology. Many providers approaching the later stages of their careers don’t want to stop practicing entirely; they want to shed the parts that have become unsustainable. Locum assignments let experienced clinicians stay engaged on their own terms, preserve income, and contribute in settings where their depth of experience is exactly what’s needed.
10 Different Career Options for NPs
June 29, 2026 | CompHealth
Nurse practitioners have more career directions available than many realize, and locum opportunities lead the list when it comes to schedule control and earning potential. The guide covers 10 paths in total, but the locum tenens section is first for a reason: it combines competitive hourly rates with the freedom to choose assignments by specialty, geography, and availability. In high-need roles, housing stipends, travel reimbursement, and malpractice coverage further strengthen the overall compensation picture.
Advanced practice staffing is absorbing the same workforce pressures pushing physicians to reconsider fixed employment models, and NPs are navigating that shift in similar ways. Locum work can function as a reset after burnout, a bridge between permanent roles, or a way to build clinical breadth without committing to one setting too early. Flexibility is increasingly part of the compensation conversation rather than a benefit added after the rate is set.
AI On Call
- A healthcare AI executive makes the case that the biggest risk in clinical AI isn’t the model or the oversight framework, but the accuracy of the underlying data those systems depend on.
- AI adoption in healthcare is outpacing AI literacy, and experts say closing that gap requires building education and transparency directly into clinical workflows rather than treating it as a training problem.
- AI tools in mental healthcare are expanding access and reducing clinician burden, but patient safety concerns, inconsistent chatbot responses, and a lack of federal regulation are raising alarms.
- While Big Tech has walked back predictions of mass AI-driven job losses, healthcare’s position has been consistent: AI is augmenting roles rather than eliminating them, with hiring shifting toward AI-literate staff.
Wellness Retreat
The Physician Burnout Fix Nobody Prescribes
June 30, 2026 | KevinMD
The standard response to physician depletion tends to focus on working more efficiently, tightening schedules, building better boundaries, and getting faster at documentation. The harder point is that optimization only goes so far when the underlying problem is simply too much volume. Physicians who have reduced their FTE often report that the pay cut they feared had almost no effect on their financial stability and an outsized effect on the rest of their lives.
Locum tenens gives physicians and APPs more control over volume, call load, and assignment duration in ways permanent roles often don’t allow. When cumulative workload is the actual problem rather than a fixable scheduling issue, that control matters more than any efficiency strategy. Treating it as a deliberate career decision rather than a default outcome is perhaps the most important takeaway.
Avoiding Burnout: Why Slower-Paced Medical Environments Are Gaining Popularity
July 1, 2026 | Docs Who Care, via LinkedIn
Slower-paced medical settings are defined by lower patient volumes, more time between cases, and greater autonomy over workflow, and they’re most commonly found in rural hospitals and clinics. Smaller patient populations and more manageable caseloads can create a calmer operating rhythm that high-volume environments rarely allow. While these settings aren’t without challenge, that difference changes how sustainable the work feels over time.
Assignment choice is one of the few variables locums have to materially change their day-to-day tempo. A provider worn down by relentless clinical pace in one setting may find a genuinely different reality in a rural or lower-volume facility. Choosing an assignment means choosing a setting, and that distinction can be the difference between recovery and continued fatigue.
Sharp Rise in Retirements, Thoughts of Leaving Medical Practice
July 2, 2026 | MedCentral
Nearly 44% of physicians surveyed by MedCentral this year said they’d thought about leaving medical practice since the start of the year, up from 35% in the prior survey, with more than 800 physicians responding. One in four cited personal burnout as part of that consideration, alongside early retirement, policy changes, and mounting clinical demands. The findings point to workforce strain that goes beyond individual frustration and reflects growing pressure on the profession.
When more clinicians weigh an exit, facilities don’t stop needing coverage, and the gap tends to show up most acutely in already thin specialties and harder-to-staff settings. Locum providers may find more openings in that environment, along with stronger leverage on rates and terms. Rising need can support better conditions, but it can also signal deeper operational stress inside the assignment, and both are worth contemplating before signing.
Doctors’ Notes
How This Physician Makes Over 1 Million a Year Doing Locums, with Susan Trocciola, MD
June 30, 2026 | YouTube
Host Dr. Nisha Mehta welcomes Dr. Susan Trocciola, a cardiothoracic surgeon who transitioned to full-time locum tenens practice after a cancer diagnosis prompted a major career reassessment. She now earns over $1 million annually, significantly more than her prior employed salary, while taking at least 16 weeks off per year. The conversation covers how she set and negotiated her rates, why she prefers working with a locum agency over contracting directly with hospitals, and how to spot red flags in assignments.
The message is one physicians across specialties can use. Locum work isn’t the right fit for everyone, but Dr. Trocciola’s experience illustrates that clinicians often have more leverage and greater options than they assume. Knowing your value, understanding contract terms, and choosing the right agency relationships can change the financial and personal calculus of independent practice significantly.
Pay Is Up, Productivity Is Down. Is It Sustainable? With Andy Swanson of MGMA
July 2, 2026 | Medical Economics
Physician compensation rose roughly 1.5% to 3% in the latest MGMA data even as encounter volume and work relative value units (RVUs) dropped, a split that makes benchmarking and recruiting harder to read. A new federal reimbursement adjustment compounds the uncertainty, reducing work RVUs across thousands of codes by 2.5% and landing hardest on procedure-heavy specialties. Whether rising pay against flat or declining reimbursement can hold is the central question the podcast works through.
Locums should watch this dynamic because staffing decisions follow financial pressure. If permanent compensation keeps climbing while reimbursement stagnates or falls, health systems will keep looking for coverage models that avoid long-term obligations, which tends to support locum demand in high-need specialties. Clinicians negotiating in procedural fields should also pay attention to specialty-specific reimbursement trends, since facilities under margin strain approach contract conversations differently.
Own Occupation Disability Insurance: A Key for Doctors
July 5, 2026 | White Coat Investor
Disability insurance is only as good as its definition of disability, and for physicians, the gap between contract types can mean the difference between full benefits and no benefits at all. True own-occupation coverage pays out if a doctor can’t work in their specialty, even if they can and do work in another field. Modified versions, which are common in employer-provided group plans, pay only if the clinician isn’t practicing at all, a meaningful restriction that catches many off guard.
Locum tenens physicians working as 1099 contractors have no employer-sponsored disability coverage, making individual plan selection especially consequential. Surgical and interventional specialties have the most at stake since a provider who can no longer perform procedures but could theoretically do other work may find a weaker contract denying their claim entirely. Understanding which coverage type matches both specialty and career structure is one of the more important financial decisions an independent clinician can make.
