Locum surgery positions are in demand among doctors due to the flexibility and diversity of experiences they offer. Locums work varied and interesting surgical cases on their schedules. The temporary arrangements are attractive in allowing more work-life balance for surgeons.
They can invest time in personal and family responsibilities between assignments. For these reasons, locum surgery careers remain extremely popular employment options in the healthcare field. How do these individuals fill a need in healthcare today?
Providing Coverage for Planned and Unplanned Absences
One of the top ways locum tenens assist surgeons is by covering planned vacations and time off as well as unplanned absences. This allows healthcare facilities to avoid disruptions in care when they lack clinicians on-site. In these ways, locum tenens serve as crucial stopgaps that allow patient treatment to carry on smoothly when permanent staff members are absent. Agencies such as comphealth.com can help surgeons find positions suitable for their needs.
Filling Gaps Between Permanent Staff
Having a network of locum tenens ready to fill gaps on short notice provides flexibility for healthcare organizations. Rather than overstaffing with permanent employees who may not be fully utilized at all times, they can bring in temporary replacement staff exactly when and where they are needed.
This prevents disruptions to patient scheduling and allows time to find permanent physician replacements for open positions. Locum tenens expand access to care by enabling healthcare facilities to maintain services during transitional gaps. Their willingness to take assignments anywhere in the country makes them an essential bridge allowing medical organizations to operate at full capacity while recruiting or waiting for permanent staff to return.
Providing Coverage in Underserved Areas
For rural areas and urban low-income neighborhoods that suffer from doctor shortages and lack of access, reliance on locum tenens keeps facilities open and ensures a basic level of medical care.
These physicians essentially act as stopgaps while traveling from place to place based on where coverage is needed most. Their flexibility and mobility are crucial for underserved populations that would otherwise need to travel long distances or face treatment delays.
Meeting Spikes in Demand
Hospitals can also utilize locum tenens to temporarily expand surgical teams to meet special demand needs. The winter months often have more demand for certain surgical specialists. Adding locum surgeons helps manage the seasonal influx so patients don’t need to prolong procedures for months.
Surgical practices also hire locum surgeons to account for doctors moving to out-of-state practices and transition times for hiring additional permanent staff when patient volume increases. This solves demand issues smoothly.
Advantages Locum Tenens Offer Surgeons
People often wonder why a surgeon wouldn’t want a permanent position and job security. Many advantages come with working as a locum tenens. The following are a few reasons why a person might want to serve as a locum tenens for all or part of their career.
Higher Earning Potential
Given the travel and temporary nature associated with locum tenens placements, physicians are financially compensated at higher rates than their permanent physician counterparts. According to data, on average across specialties locum tenens physicians can earn around 20 to 50% higher base salaries than if they were in permanent staff positions.
Those willing to travel to rural or underserved areas typically command even higher pay rates. The extra income locum tenens unlock can allow faster paying off of loans, saving for retirement, financial freedom, and wealth building.
Professional Growth and Development
The variability and volume of clinical exposure locum tenens gain allow them to expand their medical knowledge and become more adaptable practitioners. They constantly encounter new situations that push them educationally by exposing them to different patient cases, up-to-date best practices, or emerging health technologies.
Staying on top of the latest innovations ultimately makes locum tenens better physicians. The experience also helps them identify weak areas needing improvement and develop a broader differential diagnosis and treatment aptitude.
More Autonomy and Control
Locum tenens are essentially independent contractors working on a contractual basis. Unlike permanent staff physicians, they have no administrative, non-clinical, or paperwork obligations outside of direct patient care. This lack of bureaucracy grants locum tenens heightened independence in dictating their practice standards.
They can solely focus on providing quality care aligned with their medical judgment without workplace politics or productivity benchmarks infringing upon their autonomy.
Try Before You Buy Job Opportunities
Serving as a locum provides the perfect chance to check out a prospective region, community, or health organization as a temporary commitment before applying for a permanent position.
It allows assessing whether the location, cost of living expenses, workload expectations, administrative support, facility resources, and overall work environment fit your long-term needs. Locum tenens stints are like extended working interviews so doctors can better discern if entering into a lasting employee relationship with a hospital or clinic is advantageous.
How Locum Tenens Agencies Assist
Surgeons don’t need to navigate finding locum tenens assignments on their own. Locum tenens agencies do the legwork of matching qualified surgeons to specific coverage needs at healthcare facilities. The agencies act as liaisons to simplify the process.
Agencies work directly with surgeons to understand credentials, skill sets, and locational and scheduling preferences. This means surgeons can focus more on the medical practice and less on administrative coordination. Locum tenens agencies also handle licensing and hospital credentialing paperwork that can have quick turnarounds. The agencies get to know their network of clients well to best personalize matches suiting client needs.
The flexibility and customization locum tenens surgeons offer are invaluable for meeting the coverage and staffing challenges surgical practices face. Not only do locum tenens provide the ability for surgeons to have planned and unplanned absences but also assist facilities with interim solutions to hiring gaps or fluctuating patient demand. Working as a locum surgeon also has many lifestyle and career benefits that attract quality healthcare providers. Partnering with locum tenens staffing agencies further optimizes the experience benefiting both surgeons and hiring medical facilities. Having access to locum surgeons empowers surgery teams to deliver consistent and uninterrupted quality patient care.
