Hiring locum tenens as part of your permanent recruiting strategy

Every facility wants to secure great physicians who provide excellent care and plan to stick around for at least five years. Unfortunately, keeping your hospital or private practice fully staffed is easier said than done.

According to the most recent benchmarking survey from Association of Staff Physician Recruiters (ASPR), it takes an average of 222 days for a hospital’s in-house recruitment team to fill an open position. In many cases, this long hiring process results in significant revenue loss for the facility. Fortunately, locum tenens doctors can be a solution to your hiring needs. Not only does it take less time to get a locum into a position (usually about 60 days, and sometimes sooner), but using locum tenens ensures that your patients can still be seen, you can earn revenue, and your existing staff doesn’t burn out.

You might be wondering how it could possibly take more than six months to hire a new physician. Here are a few reasons the hiring process can be lengthy:

• Choosing a candidate: It can take several months to evaluate CVs and choose potential candidates to interview, especially in a highly competitive field like family practice.

• Changing employment: Even if a physician signs a contract within a few months, they may have to complete a 90-day out clause with a current employer before beginning a new job.

• Relocating: Many doctors must relocate for new positions, which can take up to 60 days, depending on individual situations.

• Credentialing: New staff physicians must be credentialed and signed up with insurance companies through the hospital, which takes 30 days.

Take the following scenario: A recruiter takes 120 days to get a signed offer with a candidate, beating the average recruitment time by more than two months, but the candidate has to complete the 90-day out clause with her current employer and needs 60 days to move. It takes another 30 days to get credentialed and sign up with the insurance companies. That makes 260 days that hospital is understaffed.

Let’s compare our 260-day recruitment scenario to a locum tenens solution. It typically takes around 60 days to credential a locum provider. That means there are 200 days of possible coverage. You must consider the cost of the locum provider, but by using the simple formula below, you can easily calculate the ROI:

(Daily gross charges - daily locum coverage rate) X 200 days = ROI

If you hire a locum tenens doctor during the time it takes to fill a position, you’ll net 200 days of billable gross charges for the facility, adding up to $451,400 (based on the MGMA 2015 Report), even if it takes 60 days to get him or her on board.

Each day that a physician is not working, you’re losing revenue. For example, say it takes you 260 days to recruit a new family practice physician who accounts for $2,254 in daily gross charges. You could be losing out on approximately $586,000 before you fill the job.

All of these steps can add up to an additional 140 days before a physician can begin his or her new job, not to mention time needed for onboarding. During that time, you could lose patients who have to wait longer to see a physician. And what happens to the other doctors at your hospital or practice? They may become overworked and consider a new career altogether, or they may begin looking for other opportunities at a different hospital. Don’t risk losing more of your staff members while you’re trying to hire a replacement. Consider the following benefits to your current staff:

• Lighter patient loads. Even hiring just one locum tenens doctor at your facility can mean a shorter workweek for other physicians and care for hundreds of patients.

• More vacation time and flexibility. Some of your doctors may not have taken a day off in months, and the daily grind of medicine is a big contributor to burnout. Having another staff member to take care of patients means others can enjoy a well-deserved break.

• Time to pursue professional opportunities. Maybe one of your surgeons wants to attend a big conference but hasn’t had the time since you’re short-staffed. With a locum tenens doctor to fill the gaps, they can finally attend.

By hiring these professionals, you can maintain your revenue, provide quality care for patients, and help ensure that other staff members don’t experience burnout while you recruit a permanent physician for your facility.

Locum tenens staffing can help address staffing challenges in both rural facilities and hospitals in some of the largest metro areas of the country.

Hiring physicians to temporarily help your facility shows you’re committed to helping staff members achieve a better work-life balance and can lead to stronger employee loyalty.

Whether you’re facing long-term shortages or need temporary coverage, our physician staffing consultants create plans for keeping your facility running smoothly.