4 in 10 Healthcare Organizations Seek Locum Tenens

Three in four healthcare organizations had to find temporary physicians at some point in the last 12 months because they couldn't find permanent physicians, survey data shows.

A survey of more than 100 healthcare organizations conducted by Irving, TX-based Staff Care also found that 41% of healthcare organizations are currently looking for temporary physicians.

"We have seen consistent demand for locums across the industry for five or six years now," says Bonnie Owens, Staff Care's senior vice president of client services. "The demand is still there. If you look at why facilities are using locums there is pretty wide variety, but they are using them mostly until they can find someone in a permanent position."

Some of the blame for the physician shortage has been placed on the nation's medical schools, where enrollments for many years failed to keep pace with overall population growth. This month the Association of American Medical Colleges reported that medical schools are on track to boost enrollment 30% by 2016. However, they may not have residency slots available for all of their new graduates.

"This is the tsunami that's been waiting to happen," Owens says. "Without those residency spots, the number of students isn't impacting the demand like we need it to."

Owens says 20% of the positions that Staff Care was asked to fill in 2011 were for primary care physicians. That was followed by 19% for behavioral care providers; 16% for anesthesia providers; 10% for hospitalists; and 8% for surgeons.

"We are also seeing a fusion of behavioral health and primary care," Owens says. "We are seeing patients come in for a variety of different needs, for instance, diabetes or obesity. Some of that can be caused by depression or onset depression."

The respondents in the survey said they liked the convenience of using locum tenens, mainly for care continuity and preventing revenue loss. However, 86% of the respondents identified the high cost of temporary help as the most significant drawback when hiring locum tenens.

Owens says the costs of any particular locum tenens physician will vary depending upon the specialty, the need, and the geographic areas. "But oftentimes hospitals are able to capture all of the expenses by billing for third-party billers, Medicare, Medicaid, or private pay," she says. "So, the expense would come in sometimes with the travel and hotel costs of putting up a temporary person. But by and large they are able to recuperate through reimbursements the fees they charge for locums."

Owens says the number of locum tenens physicians in the United States has grown in recent years because many physicians find the temporary work satisfying.

"More and more physicians are looking for a different lifestyle that locums provides," she says. "If we look back just five or six years ago there were probably about 26,000 locums. Now we are estimating there are about 38,000. You think about the demands of the practice environment and doctors are trying to find more flexibility for their schedules first of all. Secondarily, they want to avoid the politics that exist in hospitals nowadays. They get to keep their hand in medicine, and not in the business of medicine."