Rural healthcare needs help, stat
Welcome to Locums Digest, Locumpedia’s free bi-weekly roundup of industry news and trends that helps locum tenens agencies and healthcare facilities make informed business decisions.
In this edition: Rural healthcare is on the brink in America, with 700 hospitals at risk of closure while specialist shortages are forcing patients to wait months for care. But there’s a solution: integrating locums into sustainable staffing models. With the right data, agencies can help rural facilities bridge these gaps, ensuring access to critical medical expertise while boosting financial stability.
Locum Tenens Offers a Sound Financial Strategy for Rural Facilities
January 20, 2025 | Healthcare Business Today
The challenges to supporting communities in medical care “deserts,” or places where patients must travel hours each way for an appointment or procedure, are numerous—and expected to grow more common, with 700 rural hospitals at risk of closure. The multipronged solution can include integrating locums into a sustainable staffing structure. By understanding revenue data, agencies can better connect with clients in rural areas and support them in strengthening their workforce and patient care.
Even a shortage of one specialist can disrupt the system. Specialist shortages affect everything from a facility’s bottom line to its ability to the physicians remaining on staff and the accessibility of continuing patient care.
Without necessary physicians, there is unmet demand and lost procedures. The issues have stark financial numbers associated with them, and agencies can have conversations with facilities about how these dots connect and what solutions exist.
Almost half of all US counties, the majority in remote areas, do not have a cardiologist. Rural patients have 80% less access to neurologists than urban patients. One recent study found that wait times for new patient appointments across 11 medical specialties averaged 38 days, nearly three times the industry benchmark. In some rural areas, patients wait double that. Patients are forced to delay care, exacerbating health risks that are elevated in rural communities. Over the average time it takes to hire a full-time physician or surgeon, a facility may lose:
- $2.5 million per cardiovascular surgeon
- $2.3 million per neurosurgeon or cardiologist
- $2 million per orthopedic surgeon, gastroenterologist, or hematology/oncologist
During that time, at least eight months in most cases, staff physicians may feel the burden of an increased workload, which can drive them to leave their positions. The AMA has recognized addressing physician burnout as one of its top five strategies to improve rural healthcare access.
Building a workforce solution that includes locums can provide facilities with a more than 200% return on investment. Locum physicians and surgeons offer top-tier expertise and skill to facilities that otherwise may not have access because they:
- Lack the infrastructure or steady case volume to justify hiring full-time physicians and surgeons
- Do not have the budget to compete with larger markets in terms of both physician salary and recruitment costs
- Are outside a medical school–residency pipeline
Once locums are part of the plan, making them a part of the team is crucial. With proper integration, these temporary staff members will have a lasting impact. Agencies are well suited to support or even take the lead on this, given their breadth of experience. While rural facilities focus their resources on what they do best, agencies can detail for them with tailored plans, case studies, and testimonials how they are prepared to manage:
- Recruiting
- Organizing travel and housing logistics
- Onboarding
- Setting expectations and workflow guidelines
- Ensuring clear communication
- Optimizing scheduling
- Offering ongoing assistance
Over half of Americans live in rural communities, making investment in rural healthcare facilities a wise priority. Facilities working with locum providers can help preserve or strengthen those individuals’ access to quality medical care. Agencies can draw that connecting thread by bringing locums to the communities needing healthcare expertise and managing many facility recruitment and retention tasks.
La Vida Locum
It’s Not Too Late for Resolutions
January 27, 2025 | Winston Resources
While January 1 is still visible in the rear-view mirror, offer your locums physicians and APPs guidance or even just a little encouragement in some of the top resolutions for job seekers. Taking these steps now can ensure they are ready for the next assignment that comes across your desk:
- Polish their resume and LinkedIn profiles
- Expand their professional network
- Learn or enhance skills
- Practice interviewing
- Maintain a positive mindset
You can help in any number of ways:
- Share checklists, tips, and best practices
- Offer your professional review of something they’ve written
- Help them set a routine to accomplish a resolution
- Brainstorm where and how they could make new connections
- Build your relationship so it lasts beyond one assignment
7 Reasons Locum Tenens Is the Ultimate Opportunity
January 10, 2025 | Alumni Staffing
It’s not hard to entice a new candidate to try locums when you focus on these benefits:
- Travel the country. With many assignments lasting only a few weeks, there is lots of time to explore every corner of the US. And with resources such as the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact, it’s even easier for locums to practice in multiple states.
- Experience different cultures. Locum tenens gives providers the chance to explore different geographies, work with various patient populations, and become true neighbors in new areas.
- Enjoy work-life balance. By controlling when and where they work, locums choose assignments based not only on the job but also on their other commitments and what they want to explore in their free time.
- Earn more. A locum’s salary often exceeds a permanent position, with travel and lodging usually covered.
- Expand professional knowledge. Each facility has its own approach to patient care, treatment protocols, medical technologies, and resource allocation. Demonstrating adaptability and picking up tips and tricks along the way may open up more opportunities in the future.
- Build relationships. The more places a locums physician or APP works, the bigger their network grows and the quicker they become at connecting with people.
- Live an adventure. When it comes to working locums, every moment is new and different.
Locum Leaders
Barton Names New CEO
January 27, 2025 | Barton and Associates
Barton and Associates, the fifth-largest locums staffing agency in the US, announced the appointment of April Hansen, MSN, RN, as its new CEO.
Hansen has spent 20 years in healthcare leadership, following her clinical role as a registered nurse. Most recently, she was Group President of Workforce Solutions at Aya Healthcare. Known for being an innovative leader, Hansen has been named to Staffing Industry Analysts’ Staffing 100 North America and Global Power 150 Women in Staffing lists multiple times, most recently this year. Last year, she was also a Nashville Health Care Council Fellow.
Barton’s previous CEO, Robert Indresano, will become the new chair on the board of directors.
New Executive Director Brings Knowledge of Rural Staffing to Fledgling Agency
January 27, 2025 | PR Web
Founded just over a year ago, xLocums has hired Alicia Calloway as its new executive director.
Calloway, formerly with the Rural Health Association of Tennessee, brings over 15 years of experience in healthcare staffing and a strong track record in a field where locum tenens is already making an impact—and where demand is only expected to grow. In her new role, she will continue driving rural healthcare innovation and equity while tackling staffing challenges across the healthcare spectrum.
All Star Promotes Two Divisional VPs
January 28, 2025 | All Star Healthcare Solutions
All Star Healthcare Solutions promoted David Pierce to divisional vice president of business development and Eric Coleman to divisional vice president of medical staff services.
Pierce joined All Star in 2023 as the head of business development. In his new role, he will continue to focus on identifying and cultivating relationships with hospitals, clinics, and healthcare systems while supporting the work of his team of client development specialists.
Coleman has been with All Star since 2017. He leads the company’s medical staff services operations. This work will continue in his new role as he oversees internal and external credentialing and licensing teams supporting high-caliber physicians and APPs.
Hire Power
9 Ways to Be More Effective at Recruiting
January 12, 2025 | MDSpots.com
Optimize your strategies in this competitive industry. Take a holistic and adaptive approach to recruiting by following these nine best practices:
- Target your outreach. Personalize your messaging to demonstrate how your opportunity fits your candidate’s individual career goals, areas of interest, and qualifications.
- Communicate clearly and promptly. Set expectations, update regularly about the process, and offer constructive feedback.
- Showcase your agency’s unique assets. Discuss how your company’s culture, values, and achievements benefit your candidate. Back those statements up with testimonials and success stories.
- Demonstrate that physicians’ well-being is paramount. Highlight flexible schedules, wellness initiatives, and other mental health and work-life balance components of each locum assignment.
- Use modern technologies. Streamline processes, automate routine tasks, and use data analytics to maximize the candidate experience.
- Examine your compensation packages against industry standards. Ensure that you’re valuing each physician’s role fairly.
- Aim for a richly varied candidate pool. Use inclusive language in job postings and ensure unbiased hiring practices.
- Develop a comprehensive onboarding program. Foster long-term satisfaction and retention with orientation, mentorship, and clear integration steps.
- Adopt an improvement mindset. Discuss your recruitment process with candidates and colleagues. Use this input to refine your strategies.
Optimize the Candidate Journey with Virtual Hiring
December 19, 2024 | Korn Ferry
By leveraging AI-powered recruiting and hiring tools, agencies can attract top talent faster, boost in-house efficiency, and create a positive candidate experience—but only when done thoughtfully and with humans in mind.
- Know when to use virtual recruiting and when not to. Technology can smooth the process for applicants and ease the administrative burden for recruiters. However, it may not be appropriate for all roles or might need to be used to different degrees depending on the type of candidate. Be intentional in your integration of technology.
- Design a natural-sounding chatbot. If your agency uses an AI-powered assistant for some candidate-facing tasks, make sure its “personality” connects with the professionals you recruit.
- Offer the option to speak to a human—at every step of the process. There are many reasons a candidate may not want to or be able to interact with an automated system. Communication options ensure a fairer, more inclusive process.
- When creating digital content, focus on user experience. Make it visually appealing, easy to read, and mobile-friendly.
- Respond. Whether you automate the response process or reach out human to human, let your candidate know you heard them.
Making the Rounds
Increasing Provider Diversification Connects Communities
January 30, 2025 | MSN
When patients relate on a personal, perhaps life-experience level to their physicians and APPs, there are enhanced health outcomes. Shared racial, ethnic, or cultural backgrounds between patients and providers have been shown to:
- Help improve access to quality healthcare services
- Foster patient trust
- Diminish rates of health disparities
Beyond improving individual patient experiences, employing more doctors from more backgrounds is a part of the solution to the physician shortage. We need more people in these roles, and whole communities have not been sufficiently supported in pursuing healthcare careers.
Diversifying the pool of physicians and APPs starts with medical school and a student’s journey to get there. Hispanics make up nearly 20% of the US population, yet only 7% of physicians are Hispanic. Fourteen percent of the population identifies as Black or African American, but less than 6% are physicians.
In 2024, Xavier Ochsner College of Medicine partnered with Ochsner Health to become the only historically Black college and university (HBCU) medical school along the Gulf Coast and one of just a few nationwide. It has been awarded $5 million in seed funding from a large philanthropic organization. By including HBCUs in their recruitment plans, agencies can take another step toward addressing the physician shortage.
Recognizing the Cost of Staffing Delays May Open Doors for Locums
January 12, 2025 | Curious Mind Magazine
Delays in filling vital personnel roles create a domino effect that touches everything from a facility’s financial stability to patient care. Understanding the broader consequences of these delays helps agencies discuss unfilled openings with new and existing client facilities.
Financial impacts made worse by understaffing include:
- Lower patient capacity, postponed procedures, and delayed treatments
- Greater workloads for staff
- Reduced appointment availability
- Extended wait times
Agencies can work with facilities on retention best practices:
- Incorporating locums into the staffing strategy
- Offering competitive compensation
- Fostering a healthy work environment
- Promoting professional development
Resolving staffing delays quickly and efficiently lets physicians focus on quality care while hospitals increase patient capacity. Being proactive in conversations with facilities facing critical shortages and offering locums as a part of the solution can benefit providers and patients alike.
The Gender Gap Persists When It Comes to Burnout
January 27, 2025 | AMA
While burnout rates among physicians are decreasing across specialties, the gender gap remains. Women report higher levels of burnout compared to men, especially when it comes to after-hours administrative work.
A recent AMA survey found that nearly 55% of women are burned out, compared to 42% of men. Much of that stress comes from “pajama time,” or work done at home, such as returning messages and closing cases. Though both groups do similar rates of after-hours work, women feel the burden more acutely, perhaps because they also shoulder more personal and domestic responsibilities.
The AMA recommends that long-term tech and non-tech interventions be built into the system:
- AI assistance
- Adequate staffing and resources
- Improved teamwork
- Coaching and peer support
The more facilities can prioritize physician and APP well-being in their leadership, the more meaningful and successful their interventions will be.
There are many additional AMA resources available on their website.
Agencies’ Role in Physician Wellness
January 22, 2025 | HealthLeaders
When agencies promote wellness in their recruitment and provider management teams, they become part of the solution to physician burnout.
- Encourage physicians to seek help. Include messaging in recruitment, onboarding, and other communications that say it’s OK not always to be emotionally and mentally strong. Share mental health resources.
- Help physicians remain healthy. Develop a well-being structure that demonstrates your agency’s priority in this area. Suggest best practices for self-care. Remind them that locum physicians can take as much time off as they want between assignments. Work with facilities to support their physician well-being programs.
- Show appreciation. Practice formal and informal recognition and celebration.
Sponsored Content
The Future Shape of Cancer Staffing and Treatment
January 9, 2025 | Cancer CarePoint
Oncology staffing is at a turning point due to changes in technology, treatment options, and workforce dynamics, including the crucial role that locums oncologists and APPs play. By understanding and sharing the lessons of 2024 and what is expected for 2025, agencies can be stronger partners with locum oncologists and the facilities that need them.
Significant Headlines from 2024
- Telehealth is essential for oncology consultations, follow-ups, and ongoing support, especially for rural populations and other underserved communities.
- Oncology clinicians report a higher rate of burnout on average than other specialties.
- Locum staffing expanded, even as the rest of the healthcare staffing market share shrunk for the first time since 2010.
Expectations for 2025 and Beyond
- Care will continue to shift from inpatient to outpatient with advancements in immunotherapy, targeted therapies, and enhanced support systems for managing symptoms and side effects.
- The country could be short as many as 10,000 oncology physicians within five years. This is partly because more patients are surviving their cancer diagnosis. Oncology NPs and PAs, including locums APPs, are expected to fill some gaps.
- AI and predictive analytics will forecast patient volumes and staffing needs with increasing accuracy.
- Telehealth, including virtual multidisciplinary team meetings and virtual patient consultations, makes professional collaboration and patient care more flexible and accessible.
Cancer CarePoint recruiters are available to discuss these emerging trends and support oncology clinicians in pursuing rewarding career opportunities as cancer care and staffing needs evolve.
Podcast Spotlight: A Doctor’s Journey to Leadership
January 2025 | OnCall Solutions
Ever wondered what it’s like to build a career in healthcare? Leigha Barbieri’s podcast, “So You Want to Work in Healthcare?” peels back the curtain on different medical professions, sharing real stories from the field.
In the latest episode, Dr. Ralph Gonzalez—hospitalist and executive chief medical officer for OnCall Solutions—shares his path from a childhood fascination with medicine to leading in hospital administration. He discusses the vital role of hospitalists in patient care, the challenges of balancing leadership with clinical work, and why advocating for patients and clinicians is key to improving healthcare.
Dr. Gonzalez also advises aspiring healthcare professionals, stressing the importance of lifelong learning, adaptability, and work-life balance. He tackles burnout head-on, emphasizing the need for supportive work environments where clinicians can thrive.