Two major locums agencies join forces. What will it mean?
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 issue: In early May, All Star Healthcare Solutions announced its acquisition of Integrity Locums, merging two of the industry’s largest locum tenens firms. It’s the latest sign that consolidation in the locum space isn’t slowing down. While other healthcare staffing segments have stalled, locum tenens grew 15% in 2024, making it a prime target for future investment and expansion. As the deal’s broker, Brett J. Pantazi, put it, “Locums valuations and investor appetite are as strong as ever.”
Also in Digest 93: APPs are carving out space in traditionally physician-dominated subspecialties, how locum tenens keeps EDs running, unpacking strategies for building a future-proof clinical workforce, and examining the growing surgeon shortage. Plus, is AI a breakthrough solution in physician staffing, or just another overhyped tool? Finally, a new twist on an old hiring dilemma: experience or potential?
All Star Healthcare Solutions Acquires Integrity Locums
May 8 | Staffing Industry Analysts
All Star Healthcare Solutions has officially acquired Integrity Locums, combining two major players in the locum tenens staffing space. The deal, which closed May 1, brings together All Star’s national scale with Integrity’s established presence and client relationships. All Star currently ranks as the seventh-largest locum tenens provider in the US, while Integrity holds the 18th spot.
While terms of the deal were not disclosed, the move signals continued consolidation in the locum staffing industry. As the deal’s broker Brett Pantazi of Nolan & Associates put it, “The locums mergers and acquisitions market remains healthy despite headwinds the broader M&A market experienced in the first quarter of 2025. Locums valuations and investor appetite are as strong as ever.”
He continued, “Locums investments represent a safe haven for private equity investors during uneven economic cycles. The physician shortage creates a clear-cut supply and demand imbalance, which leads to recession-resistant characteristics and makes locum tenens investments a compelling value proposition in any economic environment.”
This marks All Star’s first acquisition since private equity firm Knox Lane acquired a majority stake in the company. It also comes amid strong growth in the locum tenens market, which saw a 15% revenue increase in 2024, even as other healthcare staffing segments declined. Integrity CEO Tim Devereux will step down following the transition.
La Vida Locum
How Locum Tenens Keeps Emergency Departments Running Smoothly
April 30 | MPLT Healthcare
Emergency departments operate on a razor-thin margin of control, and when staffing gaps hit, the balance can quickly falter. Long wait times, delayed care, and increased safety risks all follow. That’s where locum tenens providers make a difference. With the training and agility to step into high-volume shifts with minimal ramp-up, temporary emergency physicians and nurse practitioners help facilities maintain seamless patient care, even during holiday surges or last-minute callouts.
Compliance is just as critical. When staffing falls short, provider-to-patient ratios and documentation standards can slip. Locum tenens professionals arrive with current licenses, certifications, and the clinical credentials to keep your department audit-ready and legally sound. Partnering with a trusted staffing agency ensures you’re meeting coverage needs and maintaining compliance with confidence.
And let’s not forget your full-time team. When permanent staff are asked to stretch constantly, burnout is inevitable. Supplementing with locums gives them room to breathe, which boosts morale, preserves retention, and shows that leadership values sustainable workloads. A strong locum tenens strategy doesn’t just fill shifts. It supports your people and strengthens your department for the long haul.
Why It Pays To Take Your Time Credentialing
April 14 | Protean Med
Everyone in staffing understands the pressure to move fast. Clients want providers in the door yesterday, and every unfilled shift chips away at revenue and patient care. But when it comes to credentialing, speed without structure is a recipe for risk. The reality? Credentialing takes time, anywhere from 90 to 150 days, depending on state rules, payers, and paperwork. Rushing through that process might save days upfront, but it can create compliance nightmares down the line.
Skipping steps or cutting corners in credentialing opens the door to serious consequences. One missed red flag could put an underqualified provider in front of vulnerable patients. Mistakes in documentation can stall reimbursements, or worse, trigger legal and regulatory action. It’s not just about checking boxes; it’s about protecting the integrity of the care your facility delivers. Accuracy matters, and that takes a bit of breathing room.
So what’s the move? Smart agencies are balancing efficiency with diligence. That means implementing structured onboarding, investing in credentialing tech to streamline repetitive tasks, and insisting every provider, whether permanent or temporary, gets the same thorough verification. It might take longer, but the payoff is fewer errors, safer care, and more trust all around. In the rush to fill gaps, don’t sacrifice the one thing that keeps it all together: credibility.
Dr. Andrew Wilner on the Shift Towards Locum Tenens
May 1 | Curie: Healthcare in Focus
Dr. Andrew Wilner, author of “The Locum Life” and longtime advocate for physician autonomy, recently joined the SoundPractice Podcast to talk about what’s fueling the explosive growth of locum tenens. Hint: it’s not just about burnout.
Wilner traced the model’s origins back to the 1970s, when it emerged as a solution to rural physician shortages. But today’s growth, he argues, reflects much deeper cracks in the foundation of traditional medical careers. Bureaucracy, inflexible employment models, and physician fatigue are driving a new wave of doctors to pursue independence, and locum tenens is the vehicle.
Wilner pushed back on the tired trope that locums is only for retirees or between-job fillers. He said that physicians can build a lucrative, fulfilling, long-term career as a 1099 contractor with the right approach. That includes mastering the business side of medicine: contracts, taxes, and knowing your worth. And as long as the system keeps grinding down full-time docs, Wilner believes locum tenens isn’t just here to stay; it will thrive.
APPs Are Redefining Subspecialty Care, And They’re Just Getting Started
April 22 | LocumTenens.com
Advanced practice providers have come a long way from the days of purely support roles. In specialties like cardiology, pulmonology, and gastroenterology, nurse practitioners and physician associates are now integral to patient management, clinical decision-making, and care continuity. Whether handling cardiac discharges, writing pulmonary consults, or managing GI outpatient clinics, today’s APPs are embedded across the care spectrum, not just filling gaps, but shaping outcomes.
Facilities that lean on APPs solely for administrative or overflow support are missing a major opportunity. In many hospitals, APPs have stepped into leadership roles, particularly where physician schedules are limited or demand for specialty care is high. They manage inpatient teams, improve patient flow, and take on procedural responsibilities in surgery, trauma, and post-op recovery. As APPs take more ownership of patient care, physicians can focus on specialized procedures and strategic work, making the whole system run more efficiently.
The real shift? Many new APPs are entering the workforce already trained for subspecialty care. Meanwhile, seasoned practitioners hired a decade ago are mentoring them, creating a virtuous cycle of expertise and leadership. If facilities want to get ahead, they’ll need to design care models that match APPs to their highest-value roles to keep up with demand and give clinicians the meaningful work they want. The talent is there. Now it’s time to use it wisely.
Why More Physicians Are Taking Their Skills Overseas
April 14 | Global Medical Staffing
International assignments aren’t just a bucket-list move for burned-out physicians or retirees. Working abroad is gaining serious traction for clinicians seeking a professional reset, cross-cultural experience, or a more flexible way to practice medicine. Whether it’s a short-term stint or a long-haul relocation, staffing firms supporting international placements are well-positioned to tap into growing interest, especially from early- to mid-career providers rethinking their long-term goals.
The demand is there, from locum-style contracts to telemedicine and humanitarian work, but so is the logistics. Agencies that offer support with licensing, credentialing, and visa coordination have a competitive edge, especially when housing and family relocation are part of the package. While pay rates vary by region, supplemental benefits and work-life perks often seal the deal for providers ready to leap into a new system.
International work is proving to be more than a sabbatical. Instead, it’s a way for physicians to stay engaged, sharpen their skills, and explore nontraditional career paths. As more clinicians look for meaningful ways to practice on their own terms, global placements could become a powerful recruitment and retention tool for forward-thinking staffing firms.
Locum Leaders
How to Know When It’s Time to Call in Locum Tenens Support
April 25 | Alumni Healthcare Staffing
When patient wait times creep up and burnout starts brewing, it’s often a signal that your team is stretched too thin. These gaps can snowball into serious staffing strain, whether it’s seasonal surges, extended PTO, or a sudden resignation. A proactive locum tenens strategy can help maintain coverage, protect morale, and prevent disruption before it starts.
Locums are especially useful when specialty roles go unfilled or rural locations make full-time recruitment difficult. Suppose you need a neurologist two days a week or temporary coverage while a new hire finishes credentialing. In that case, a skilled locum provider can step in quickly and keep care delivery on track. This flexibility allows your team to focus on patient care instead of scrambling to fill shifts.
It’s not just about plugging holes. Locum providers help balance the workload so your permanent staff can stay energized, supported, and more likely to stick around. For staffing professionals, early signs like increasing overtime or limited access to specialists are clear cues to act. With a strong locum strategy in place, you’re reinforcing your staffing foundation while ensuring patients receive seamless, quality care.
Should You Hire for Experience or Potential?
May 1 | Winston Resources
Healthcare recruiters have long grappled with whether to prioritize experience or potential in hiring decisions. While experienced professionals bring industry fluency and compliance readiness, those with strong potential often adapt quickly to new technologies and introduce innovative approaches to patient care. Knowing when to tap into seasoned expertise and when to bet on fresh thinking can be the competitive edge for agencies supporting smaller facilities or growing provider networks.
Spotting potential takes more than résumé scanning. Behavioral interviews and scenario-based questions can uncover a candidate’s grit, curiosity, and creative problem-solving. This is especially important in roles requiring precision and agility; think IT specialists managing EMR systems or locum providers navigating unfamiliar hospital protocols. At the same time, experienced hires offer more than know-how. They come with referral networks and operational foresight that can’t be taught. The key for agencies is aligning talent strategy with the specific expectations of their client facilities.
Ultimately, it’s not a binary choice. Agencies that cultivate a hybrid hiring mindset can meet the moment while preparing for what’s next. By working closely with clients to understand long-term goals and staffing pain points, recruiters can shape talent pipelines that deliver both immediate results and future resilience.
How To Recruit a Future-Proof Workforce
April 7 | CompHealth & Radancy
Healthcare recruiters have long grappled with whether to prioritize experience or potential in hiring decisions. While experienced professionals bring industry fluency and compliance readiness, those with strong potential often adapt quickly to new technologies and introduce innovative approaches to patient care. Knowing when to tap into seasoned expertise and when to bet on fresh thinking can be the competitive edge for agencies supporting smaller facilities or growing provider networks.
Spotting potential takes more than résumé scanning. Behavioral interviews and scenario-based questions can uncover a candidate’s grit, curiosity, and creative problem-solving. This is especially important in roles requiring precision and agility; think IT specialists managing EMR systems or locum providers navigating unfamiliar hospital protocols. At the same time, experienced hires offer more than know-how. They come with referral networks and operational foresight that can’t be taught. The key for agencies is aligning talent strategy with the specific expectations of their client facilities.
Ultimately, it’s not a binary choice. Agencies that cultivate a hybrid hiring mindset can meet the moment while preparing for what’s next. By working closely with clients to understand long-term goals and staffing pain points, recruiters can shape talent pipelines that deliver both immediate results and future resilience.
The State of Healthcare Recruiting in 2025
April 28 | Smart Recruiters
Healthcare recruiting in 2025 faces mounting pressure from growing demand, long hiring cycles, and widespread vacancies across clinical roles. US healthcare added over 900,000 jobs in 2024, but recruiters are contending with sluggish pipelines, averaging 41 days to hire and below-average offer acceptance rates. A shortage of 100,000 critical healthcare workers is expected by 2028, with roles like nursing assistants and radiologic techs especially difficult to fill. Many organizations still rely on outdated ERP-driven applicant tracking systems that hinder speed and visibility, putting them at a disadvantage as the talent gap widens.
To counter these challenges, healthcare employers are adopting more innovative tech and AI tools to optimize recruiting workflows, streamline candidate experiences, and improve source attribution. Case studies from organizations like Asbury Communities and KinCare show real-world results: reduced time to fill, increased candidate engagement via SMS, and better hiring decisions through channel-specific data. Candidate rediscovery strategies and AI-powered personalized outreach are also gaining traction, offering more efficient ways to convert previous applicants into active prospects.
The article argues that AI isn’t just a helpful tool. It’s a strategic imperative. From auto-scheduling interviews to flagging low pipeline activity, AI-enabled platforms free recruiters to focus on relationship-building and long-term hiring strategies. As talent acquisition leaders look to scale efforts without adding headcount, adopting modern technology is becoming a must. Healthcare staffing professionals who stay ahead of the curve will be better positioned to deliver faster placements, stronger candidate experiences, and measurable business impact in the years ahead.
Hire Power
How to Keep Your Facility Staffed During The Summer Peak
May 1 | Hayes Locums & Vista Staffing
Summer brings a perfect storm of increased patient volume, staff vacations, and the looming threat of burnout. With more than 80% of US adults planning time off and emergency departments seeing predictable spikes in visits due to heat, injuries, and holiday mishaps, facilities that don’t prepare risk falling behind. Healthcare organizations can get ahead by anticipating peak periods, planning coverage early, and avoiding the burnout trap of over-relying on core teams to pull extra shifts.
Flexible staffing solutions like locum tenens offer a critical safety valve. Locums can step in during vacation gaps, support teams during demand surges, and provide a level of agility that permanent hires can’t always match. When paired with tools like workforce analytics, telemedicine, and modern scheduling platforms, facilities can respond more quickly to changing needs and maintain continuity of care.
Long-term resilience also depends on building a workforce that can adapt. Offering education stipends, removing barriers to upskilling, and creating flexible float models are strategies already being used to reduce strain and boost retention. Younger clinicians increasingly value schedule flexibility and autonomy, which makes shift-swapping and compressed schedules more than just a perk; they’re essential tools to keep teams engaged and ready for whatever summer throws their way.
A Deeper Look at the Surgeon Shortage
April 24 | Medicus Healthcare Solutions
Despite over 90,000 practicing surgeons in the US, a critical workforce misalignment is growing, especially in rural areas. Projections from AAMC forecast a shortage of up to 19,900 surgical specialists by 2036, driven by rising demand from an aging population and a wave of surgeon retirements. Nearly 25% of surgeons are already 65 or older, and regions like South Carolina, Oklahoma, and Louisiana have among the fewest surgeons per capita. This growing imbalance is especially problematic in rural areas, where only 10% of general surgeons practice, leaving many patients to travel an hour or more for care.
Surgical demand is expected to rise 2-3% annually over the next decade, with procedures for older adults making up a larger share of hospital case volumes. That makes recruitment and retention, especially in underserved areas, a strategic priority for health systems. One interim solution is locum tenens surgeons. About 11,700 surgeons have taken on locum roles, either full-time or to supplement permanent work. Locum support allows hospitals to address immediate gaps while reducing burnout among full-time surgical staff.
The report calls for targeted efforts to attract and retain rural surgeons, including benefits like better compensation, flexible schedules, and improved support staff infrastructure. Locum partnerships can do more than fill gaps. They help maintain consistent surgical coverage and protect hospital revenue. With surgeons responsible for up to 60% of hospital income, and up to $2.7 million annually per surgeon in rural settings, the case for creative, nimble staffing solutions is more urgent than ever.
Can AI Help Mitigate the Physician Shortage?
May 1 | The Westerly Sun & Healthcare IT News
The US is staring down a physician shortage that could surpass 86,000 by 2036, with consequences already surfacing in the form of longer wait times, lower life expectancy, and rising misdiagnosis rates. One often-overlooked remedy is artificial intelligence. As demand for healthcare grows, AI is gaining traction as a tool to increase provider efficiency, ease documentation burdens, and reduce burnout, one of the leading contributors to physician attrition.
By automating time-consuming administrative tasks like billing and electronic health record updates, AI could help clinicians recover hours lost to paperwork. In 2020, physicians were found to spend nearly half their workday managing EHRs. Freeing up this time would allow providers to see more patients and reduce the emotional strain that leads to early exits from the workforce. Studies suggest AI could cut workloads by up to 44% and significantly reduce clinical errors, with some estimates pointing to as many as 250,000 lives saved annually.
However, the benefits of AI may not be distributed equally. Well-funded facilities are more likely to adopt advanced tools, which could widen the quality gap between affluent hospitals and those with fewer resources. Even so, AI is positioned as a core strategy rather than a luxury add-on. For healthcare recruiters and staffing firms, this signals a future where AI is not replacing providers but helping extend their reach and support long-term workforce sustainability.
New Bill Aims to Boost RPM Reimbursement for Rural Providers
May 1 | Health Leaders Media
A bipartisan bill introduced in Congress aims to boost Medicare reimbursement for rural providers using remote patient monitoring (RPM). The Rural Patient Monitoring Access Act proposes setting a geographic payment floor so rural hospitals and health systems can receive RPM reimbursements at the same level as their urban counterparts. Many rural providers have been slow to adopt RPM because reimbursement has not kept pace with operational costs, despite higher rates of chronic illness and ongoing care access challenges in these communities.
The legislation also includes safeguards to ensure RPM programs deliver real clinical value. If passed, it would require RPM technologies to transmit real-time biometric data to electronic health records and support timely clinical responses. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services would report outcomes to the Department of Health and Human Services to help evaluate cost savings and clinical impact. The bill has support from a broad coalition of health systems and advocacy groups, reflecting growing momentum to make digital care models more sustainable in underserved areas.
Research from the Peterson Center on Healthcare reinforces the need for reform, highlighting hypertension, diabetes, and heart failure as top conditions managed through RPM. The study calls for smarter reimbursement models that reward outcomes instead of relying on outdated billing codes. This legislation could create new opportunities for staffing firms and providers by expanding RPM adoption in rural markets, helping close care gaps, and driving demand for clinicians experienced in remote chronic care management.
Sponsored Content
How Partnering With The Doctor’s CPA Can Boost Recruiting and Retention
May 13 | The Doctor’s CPA
Helping your physicians navigate 1099 income isn’t just nice to have. It is a smart move that can give your staffing firm an edge. Partnering with a CPA who specializes in locum tenens work helps clinicians manage self-employment taxes, maximize deductions, and build a stronger financial foundation. For agencies, offering access to expert financial support can boost retention, improve provider satisfaction, and make your firm stand out in a competitive staffing market.
When physicians feel financially secure, they are more likely to stick around. The right CPA can help them optimize income, reduce tax liability, and plan for long-term goals through S-Corp structuring, retirement strategies, and personalized budgeting. It is not just about tax season. It is about giving your providers clarity and peace of mind that supports their clinical focus and loyalty to your agency.
With The Doctor’s CPA, your firm can integrate tailored financial services without adding to your internal workload. Their team handles everything directly with your physicians, from filing to long-term planning. That means your agency gets the credit for offering a valuable benefit, without the administrative lift. It is a win for your providers, your placements, and your bottom line.
