Locums Digest #138 | In-Demand Locum Specialties, Healthcare Staffing Rebounds, Smarter Assignments & More

Editor’s Note

Healthcare staffing is showing real signs of expansion after several difficult years. Demand is strengthening across specialties, and the broader market is beginning to rebound. That growth does not mean the underlying pressure points have eased. Specialty-specific shortages remain uneven, and some fields still lean far more heavily on temporary coverage than others.

Leaving a role unfilled can affect patient access, referral relationships, and the workload carried by remaining staff. Facilities that treat locum tenens coverage as part of an ongoing workforce plan, rather than a reaction to a resignation, tend to weather these gaps with less disruption. Data on individual specialties can also help identify where needs are most acute.

New workforce programs, industry recognition, and rural health funding are all part of the picture this month. None of it replaces the fundamentals of good staffing. Healthcare employers and agencies that know their areas of greatest exposure, plan ahead of need, and choose partners with a track record of follow-through are the ones best positioned to benefit as the market strengthens.

– The Locumpedia Editorial Team

Lead Story

Healthcare Staffing Rebounds as Demand Strengthens in the Second and Third Quarters

September 8, 2026 | Staffing Industry Analysts

The US healthcare staffing market has returned to growth following a period of contraction. New forecasting projects the market will expand 1% this year to $39 billion, then grow another 3% in 2027 to $40.1 billion. The improvement reflects rising job orders and a record year for hospital strikes. The recovery remains uneven across segments and firms, and pricing has normalized from the highs reached during the pandemic.

Locum tenens continues to offer some of healthcare staffing’s strongest structural demand. Growth is forecast at 4% in both 2026 and 2027, supported by ongoing physician shortages. Anesthesiology, radiology, cardiology, oncology, surgical specialties, and advanced practice roles such as CRNAs are among those fueling that expansion.

Opportunities are greatest where clinical shortages, patient acuity, procedural volume, and the need to maintain service-line capacity outweigh cost pressures. Agencies operating in high-need areas may be well-positioned as the overall market stabilizes. Diversifying across care settings and specialized roles is emerging as a more robust growth lever than headline market expansion alone.

La Vida Locum

Why Physician Vacancies Cost More Than Most Health Systems Realize

September 17, 2026 | Alliance Recruiting Resources

Healthcare leaders often view a physician vacancy through a recruitment lens, focused on filling the role quickly while managing costs. The operational effects can be easy to overlook. Vacancies can affect patient access, physician retention, revenue, and service line growth long before a replacement is identified. Longer wait times, delayed procedures, and referral leakage to competing systems often set in immediately.

Physicians may be asked to take additional call and expanded patient loads in the meantime. The added burden can quickly contribute to burnout, lower job satisfaction, and higher turnover risk across an entire department. The most successful organizations treat recruitment as an ongoing workforce planning process rather than waiting until a position becomes vacant. This approach includes monitoring retirement timelines, building candidate pipelines early, and using locum tenens strategically before access challenges become urgent.

Building More Successful Locum Tenens Assignments

September 11, 2026 | Barton Associates

Matching the right clinician to a role is only one part of successful locum tenens staffing. Keeping the assignment running smoothly after the match presents another challenge. Up to six months can pass between the day a clinician accepts an opportunity and the day they start seeing patients. In that window, licensing and privileging both have to clear, travel has to get booked, and roughly a dozen people across two organizations have to stay aligned.

Assignment continuity means identifying and resolving potential operational barriers before they put coverage at risk. Done well, it helps facilities maintain dependable coverage and protects continuity of care for the communities they serve. A dedicated readiness team works alongside recruiting and account staff throughout a locum opportunity’s lifecycle to keep it on track. The team has already supported hundreds of higher-risk assignments.

Locums Trends: The Most In-Demand Specialties of 2026

September 10, 2026 | Hayes Locums

Several specialties are showing outsized demand for locum coverage this year. Urology tops the list, driven by a nationwide shortage in which more than 60% of US counties have no practicing urologist. Tightening on-call requirements at trauma centers have made that gap more acute, since losing urology coverage can put a hospital’s trauma certification at risk. Cardiology follows closely, with nearly half of the counties across the country lacking a practicing cardiologist and 86% of rural counties left without one at all.

Radiology and gastroenterology are under similar pressure as demand for services outpaces the supply of specialists. Nearly 50 million Americans now live more than 25 miles from a gastroenterologist, and interventional radiology in particular has struggled to attract new trainees. Advanced practice providers are increasingly filling adjacent gaps across specialties as the physician shortage persists. Facilities in both rural and major metropolitan markets are turning to locum tenens to meet staffing needs and address procedural backlogs.

Locum Leaders

• CHG Healthcare launched a new Workforce Bridge Program aimed at helping healthcare organizations maintain coverage during physician transitions and workforce gaps.
• Jackson Healthcare marked 10 consecutive years of Great Place To Work certification, an honor based entirely on confidential employee feedback and one that has helped earn the company recognition on 21 workplace lists over the past decade.
• Staffing Industry Analysts opened nominations for its 2027 Staffing 100 North America and Staffing 25 Latin America lists, honoring staffing leaders who have made a significant impact on their companies or the industry, with submissions due Oct. 8.

Hire Power

The Changing Physician Workforce: What Healthcare Leaders Need to Know

August 26, 2026 | Becker’s Hospital Review

More than 171,700 physicians have taken or are currently working locum assignments as of July, representing roughly 17% of the US physician workforce. Participation is even higher in several specialties critical to patient access. Radiology leads at 35%, followed by emergency medicine and pathology at 21% each. Gastroenterology sits at 20%, with internal and family medicine at 18% and urology at 17%.

Locum tenens is supporting organizational needs beyond filling individual vacancies. Healthcare leaders are using it to maintain specialty coverage, navigate provider transitions, and respond to periods of change. Growing patient volumes and evolving physician preferences are reshaping how organizations approach clinical workforce planning altogether. Flexibility, not just availability, is becoming the standard healthcare leaders plan around.

Is Radiology at a Structural Breaking Point? What Will Move It to a Better Future?

September 8, 2026 | MedCity News

Radiology sits at the center of modern medicine, bridging clinical symptoms and treatment decisions. Annual imaging volume in the US exceeds 250 million procedures, with spending topping $100 billion. Burnout in the specialty reached 45% this year, the fifth-highest rate among specialties behind emergency medicine, urological surgery, hematology-oncology, and OB-GYN. The challenge is compounded by digital radiology systems that have grown into fragmented collections of tools assembled over decades.

Industry trends point toward AI-based workflow tools becoming more widespread and harder to differentiate between vendors. Technology and services are bundled into full care pathway solutions rather than sold as standalone point tools. Competition is intensifying too, with partnering and consolidation accelerating as healthcare spending tightens. The shortage also helps explain the role that locum tenens and other temporary staffing approaches can play in maintaining radiology coverage.

Making the Rounds

States Bet Big on Rural Health Startups, With a Silicon Valley Twist

September 16, 2026 | KFF Health News

Several states are setting aside money from the federal Rural Health Transformation Program to invest directly in rural health startups. Louisiana alone earmarked $20 million a year for five years for this purpose. The $50 billion federal program was established in the context of more than $900 billion in expected Medicaid spending reductions. First-year awards to states ranged from $147 million in New Jersey to $281 million in Texas.

Modernizing technology infrastructure is a key pillar of the federal program. The strategy mirrors the experimental mindset associated with private-sector startups. Officials describe the goal as moving quickly, testing new ideas, and shifting successful models toward sustainability. Rural communities have long faced doctor shortages and hospital closures, and this funding is intended to spur innovation rather than simply fill budget gaps.