At AB Staffing, we place medical professionals in hospitals and clinics in places of high demand. Locum tenens are nurse practitioners, physicians, and physician assistants who take temporary contracts in hospitals and clinics that need staff. This sector is set to grow a projected 7.5% from 2023 to 2024 due to factors including serving underserved areas, meeting demand of facilities in reorganization due to a surge of acquisitions, physician burnout, and serving the needs of an aging population.
Factors Contributing to Demand for Locum Tenens
Facilities hire locums to address increased patient demand, support their staff during peak periods, continue services while transitioning their organization, maintain the flexibility to adjust staffing levels as needed, or test a new service market.
At the time of this article’s publication, AB Staffing is seeing a higher demand in family medicine, emergency medicine, and dentistry. This is often due to the need for coverage during vacations, covering for maternity or paternity leave, reducing staff workload, or mitigating burnout. It is estimated that 50% of physicians experience burnout to some degree. The pandemic and its lasting impact on healthcare professionals and the industry contributes to burnout and, thus, the need for locums.
Trends Driving Demand
In today’s healthcare industry, we see workforce shortages, rising patient demand, and demand for flexible work arrangements, all outcomes of the pandemic. Healthcare workers are tired and looking for flexibility to care for themselves and their families and continue to provide quality patient care.
Locum tenens is forecast to remain an in-demand option with sustained growth through 2024 and likely beyond.
Benefits of Locums for Healthcare Facilities
The benefits to facilities and likely contributors to the rising demand for locum tenens include allowing for the continual treatment of patients, faster availability of treatment, revenue loss prevention, reducing staff burnout, access to specialized practitioners, and being a temporary candidate before extending a permanent offer.
It is more common for facilities to hire locums to cover in-demand specialties because it costs less to hire a contract worker who does not receive paid benefits like PTO, insurance, and retirement planning.
Benefits for Healthcare Professionals
Healthcare professionals are being welcomed into communities and are growing in their clinical experience. Locums are no longer viewed as temporary workers. Instead, they are viewed as an integral part of a team and of the organization as a whole. The perks for locums include career flexibility, the ability to thrive in a new city, higher pay rates, work-life balance, the opportunity to experience new cultures, the opportunity to grow a specialty, and the opportunity to gain experience working with diverse communities.
Other Factors to Consider
While the benefits are great, locums must consider other factors.
- While the AB Staffing team tries to match professionals to geographic and facilities of interest, we cannot always make “bucket list” options happen. We try our best!
- Communication with the AB Staffing recruiter is essential to understanding interests, experience, and goals.
- Duration of a contract. This can be three months up to a year.
There is no PTO on a travel contract, so if it is a year-long commitment, there is no paid vacation. Working with your recruiter to secure some preplanned time off is allowed so make sure to plan accordingly. Taking time off that wasn’t already agreed to prior to signing the contract is frowned upon.
In other words, take time to consider whether locum tenens work is right for you. While the demand is high, you will need to make the choice based on what works best for you and your family.
The top specialties for AB Staffing locums are Family Medicine, Emergency Medicine, and Dentistry. If you are interested in becoming a Locum, we would love to discuss your career goals.
Check out the AB Staffing Job Board and contact the team today!
