Editor’s Note
For years, healthcare has tracked success largely through traditional metrics. Patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) are expanding that picture by asking patients how they feel and function after treatment, offering a more complete view of the care they receive. As their use continues to grow, physicians may find that quality is measured through both clinical results and the patient experience.
Preparing for those changes requires more than keeping up with evolving quality measures. It also means understanding new technologies, navigating licensing and credentialing requirements, choosing the right staffing partners, and making informed financial decisions throughout every stage of a provider’s professional life. The more prepared clinicians are before opportunities arise, the better positioned they are to make the most of them.
This issue of Locums CME explores many of those topics, along with actionable insights on physician well-being and planning for the future. Whether you’re evaluating new tools, considering your next assignment, or thinking about the years ahead, reliable information remains one of the most valuable resources you can bring to your practice. The physicians who benefit most tend to be the ones who begin asking these questions early.
– The Locumpedia Editorial Team
Lead Story
Hospitals Are Focusing on a New ‘Vital Sign’: How Patients Actually Feel
July 13, 2026 | Newsweek
Hospitals have long tracked mortality, readmissions, and other clinical markers, but a growing number are now asking patients directly how they feel during recovery. Patient-reported outcome measures, known as PROMs, use standardized surveys to capture pain, mobility, mental health, and daily function in ways standard records often miss. The shift signals a broader move from documenting what clinicians did to measuring whether people’s lives actually improved.
PROMs have moved well beyond academic research, now shaping hospital quality programs, public rankings, and value-based reimbursement tied to federal payment models. Mass General Brigham alone collects roughly 5 million such responses a year, reflecting how central this data has become to care decisions. The findings can reveal wide gaps between a technically successful procedure and how a patient actually feels afterward, sometimes surfacing problems standard imaging or exams miss entirely.
Locum clinicians with assignments in larger health systems or procedure-heavy specialties, especially orthopedics and other surgical fields under CMS value-based models, are likely to encounter these surveys woven into intake, discharge, and follow-up steps. Before starting a new contract, it’s worth confirming whether the facility collects these measures, who reviews them, and how much documentation falls on a visiting provider. Where PROMs are in use, this data is increasingly shaping how institutions define quality and justify reimbursement, alongside standard clinical judgment.
Your Locums Prescription
How to Obtain a DEA License: Application, Fees, and Renewal Guide
July 20, 2026 | CompHealth
DEA registration is a scheduling issue disguised as paperwork. First-time online applications typically take four to six weeks, the current fee is $888 for three years, and clinicians must already hold the required state license, plus a controlled substance permit where the state requires one. New applicants and renewing registrants must also satisfy the one-time, eight-hour MATE Act training requirement unless an exemption applies.
Interstate contracts add another layer, since a home-state DEA registration doesn’t automatically cover controlled-substance work elsewhere. A separate one is generally required in each state, though certain facility-based arrangements may let a provider rely on the hospital’s instead. Confirming that setup early, starting renewals 45 to 90 days ahead, and keeping address details current can prevent a prescribing gap from stalling an otherwise ready locum tenens assignment.
How to Choose Locum Tenens Agencies, Read Contracts, and Build a 2–3 Firm Bench
July 21, 2026 | Era Locums
Relying on a single locum staffing agency limits access to one firm’s contract channels and market view, while spreading across too many creates duplicate submissions and confusion. Two or three deliberately chosen partners strike the right balance. That range gives physicians access to different facility contracts, rates, schedules, and credentialing support.
The bench works only when each relationship gets real attention, starting with clear criteria for case mix, call, geography, travel, workload, and deal breakers before reviewing any openings. Clinicians should also ask who controls contact with the facility, whether representation is exclusive, and what they’re owed if a shift or contract gets canceled. Narrowing the field based on performance rather than promises, backed by clear communication and clean contracts, is what earns a firm repeat business.
7 Powerful Reasons Locum Tenens Is the Ideal Retirement Transition for Physicians
July 26, 2026 | Annashae
Retirement doesn’t have to begin with a hard stop. Locum tenens can let experienced physicians reduce their clinical load gradually, work during selected seasons, continue mentoring younger clinicians, and preserve income without returning to a permanent schedule. The model can create a bridge between full-time practice and a complete departure from patient care.
It offers flexibility that works best with clear boundaries in place, since a lighter caseload and fewer administrative duties can still drift back toward full-time work without defined limits on scope. Locum assignments also let physicians sample new practice settings and regions instead of settling for whatever was available at retirement. The strongest transitions come from clinicians who design their own pace deliberately, adjusting workload up or down as goals and finances shift over time.
AI on Call
- An AI note-checker flagged a missed congenital heart defect in a nearly 10,000-encounter randomized trial, improving diagnostic accuracy without a statistically significant gain in patient outcomes.
- Samsung’s new AI health assistant is part of a larger push to feed wearable and wellness data directly into clinical workflows and medical records.
- OpenAI expanded ChatGPT Health to all US adults as weekly health queries hit 300 million, a day after a lawsuit alleged the tool delayed a user from seeking care.
Wellness Retreat
Physician Burnout Is the Hazard No One Trained Me For
July 17, 2026 | KevinMD
Burnout can surface long before a physician has a name for it, showing up as exhaustion, resentment, and detachment during otherwise ordinary clinical moments. Long shifts and chronic self-denial are often treated as proof of commitment early in a medical career, which makes the earliest warning signs easy to dismiss. What matters more is a culture that teaches providers to ignore their own limits until basic functioning becomes difficult.
Temporary work can create distance from a damaging environment, but a different badge and zip code won’t automatically repair depleted capacity. Before accepting a locum opportunity, it’s worth examining sleep, call intensity, recovery time, travel, and emotional bandwidth with the same seriousness as compensation. Scheduling days off around each assignment and leaving room between facilities only helps if that built-in flexibility actually gets used.
Ensuring the Voice of Physicians Guides Well-Being Initiatives
July 23, 2026 | American Medical Association
Well-being improves most when organizations change how work actually gets done, not just what physicians are told about handling stress. Mid-Atlantic Permanente Medical Group used physician feedback to identify EHR and workflow strain as a major source of burnout, responding with an ambient documentation tool built into daily practice. It also developed a career-stage strategy, offering mentoring for early-career physicians, longevity support mid-career, and transition planning near retirement.
Locums can test that philosophy during interviews. Ask how leaders collect clinician feedback, how quickly operational problems reach someone with authority, and whether temporary staff have access to the same documentation and peer-support resources as permanent teams. Facilities reveal their real priorities through daily workflow. Clear escalation paths and responsive local leadership can determine whether an assignment remains workable.
How Doctors Are Really Doing: Physician Mental Health and Well-Being Report 2026
July 10, 2026 | Medscape
Physician well-being varies sharply by specialty, generation, and working conditions, according to a recent Medscape survey covering physicians across more than two dozen specialties. Dermatology led the happiness ranking at 91%, while general surgery ranked last at 60%. Physicians older than 40 were also more likely to report that their happiness had worsened, while younger physicians more often reported improvement.
Those differences are important when comparing assignments because specialty strain follows clinicians across employment models. A high rate doesn’t offset excessive call, weak staffing, or a schedule that blocks recovery. Case volume, backup coverage, and control over future dates often shape sustainability more than the quoted rate, so it’s worth reviewing the full operating environment before accepting an assignment.
Doctors’ Notes
Think More Income Will Solve Your Financial Problems? Maybe Not
July 21, 2026 | White Coat Investor
A bigger salary doesn’t guarantee more financial freedom. High earners are often more likely than moderate ones to live paycheck to paycheck, a pattern that traces back to lifestyle spending that rises right along with the raises. Physicians fall squarely into that higher-income bracket, where the gap between what’s earned and what’s saved tends to disappear fastest.
Variable locum earnings make that lesson especially relevant. Build recurring expenses around a conservative baseline, then give stronger months a defined job such as taxes, debt reduction, retirement contributions, or cash reserves. Avoid treating every premium assignment as permanent income, since financial flexibility comes from the gap between what comes in and what goes out, not from the size of a single contract.
How Physicians Can Break Into Health Innovation and Tech, with Dr. Aaron Reinke and Jody Tropeano Greene
July 21, 2026 | YouTube
AI is lowering the barrier for physicians to build their own healthcare solutions without needing a large engineering team behind them, opening new paths into consulting, advisory work, investing, and entrepreneurship alongside clinical practice. Dr. Aaron Reinke describes using conferences like HLTH to build an advisory portfolio, expand his network, and begin developing his own AI-powered tools. It’s the kind of hands-on involvement that reflects a greater shift in how doctors are entering the health tech arena.
Physicians bring something many companies in that space still lack internally: a credible seat at the table that stands out in a crowded market. Jody Tropeano Greene, head of content at HLTH, also joins “Inside the Doctor’s Lounge” host Dr. Nisha Mehta to unpack how the Physicians @ HLTH program evolved into a structured way for clinicians to break into health tech. The conversation closes with concrete steps for anyone considering a first move into health innovation, whether through HLTH or another path.
Locum Tenens Physician Reimbursements and Stipends: What’s Taxable?
July 6, 2026 | The Doctor’s CPA
A stipend isn’t automatically tax-free because it covers housing, meals, or travel. Flat payments without receipts are generally treated as ordinary income and may be subject to federal, state, and self-employment taxes. Bonuses, call pay, productivity incentives, and assignment-completion payments are taxable no matter what label is used.
Properly documented reimbursements may receive different treatment under an accountable plan. The expense must have a business purpose, records such as receipts or mileage logs must support it, and excess funds must be returned. Keep income, reimbursements, and expenses in separate categories, reconcile each agency’s year-end Form 1099 against personal records, and never deduct an expense that’s already been reimbursed.
