VISTA Archived Blogs

One of the most difficult tasks clinicians have to contend with is compiling and maintaining an up-to-date, attractive CV. The common adage, “there’s an app for that” exists for a reason: There usually is an app for something and now there are multiple apps for clinicians who want to manage their CVs. Given the average locum tenens provider’s frequency of travel and need for convenience, speed, and portability, the smartphone, and its CV management apps could be a clinician's new best friend throughout their locum tenens careers.

The word 'locum' is a French word derived from the Latin phrase 'locum tenens', which means “place holder.” We traditionally view the locum tenens physician or provider as a medical practitioner filling a temporary coverage gap for another provider or physician who is on vacation, sabbatical, family leave, or other extended absence. Yet for a rising number of locum tenens physicians and providers, the work is not temporary at all: It is becoming an increasingly popular full-time career opportunity.

Although demand for locum tenens providers has been on the rise for decades, it wasn’t until Jan. 2015 that legislature started to seriously accommodate this demand—a demand that the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact stands to mitigate. LocumTenensDaily.com reports that 10 states have introduced the legislation to expedite the locum licensing process: Minnesota, Nebraska, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Vermont, and Wyoming are the US’s first states to utilize this bill.

Becker's Hospital Review closed out the month of March (2015) by publishing the most recent statistics for 2015 healthcare recruiting, and there were few surprises in the data. Moreover, most of the predictions for the latter stages of 2015 materialized: The bottom line being that the physician shortage will continue throughout the remainder of this year while both medical facilities and recruiters strive to fill gaps in medical coverage.

1. What?: Opportunity Means More Money and  Less Time

It’s common for serious, professional types to question the role that social media plays in the world. However, as trivial as one may deem it, social media stands to incentivize family practice physicians to partake in resolving one of the world’s biggest healthcare crises - the physician shortage.

The tale of the medical provider enthralled by wanderlust, who takes an adventure to a foreign area in pursuit of work in a locum tenens role, is no longer a tale of risk so much as it is one of the positive results.

There are two ways to bill Medicare when using a locum tenens provider, depending on the situation.

Despite six-figure salaries and plenty of perks, more and more doctors are falling victim to preventable financial mishaps near the end of their careers. Although resolvable, this issue raises questions about how these situations are best mitigated and changed.

While many physicians accept full-time jobs at hospitals and other medical facilities, some choose to work in locum tenens positions.  This term translates to “one holding a place,” but many think of a locum tenens job as simply a temporary position, because that’s what it is – these are short-term jobs that professionals take for a number of different reasons.