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Recurring Locum Tenens Opportunities Benefit Providers, Facilities, and Patients
The locum tenens relationship has many beneficiaries: Physicians and advanced practitioners are empowered to configure their schedules for greater work/life integration, for example, and healthcare organizations rely on locum tenens professionals to fill staffing voids and provide patients with high-quality care. However, that relationship can be further enhanced when locum tenens providers and facility administrators agree to turn the temporary position into an ongoing engagement.
Providers Enjoy a Sense of Stability
Schedule flexibility is one of the most popular incentives for physicians, NPs, PAs, and CRNAs to accept locum tenens jobs. That said, it does not have to mean a lack of schedule stability.
Providers can customize their locum tenens approach to what best suits their preferences—such as accepting only the occasional moonlighting job or turning the career alternative into a full-time practice. Additionally, not every assignment has to have a firm end date. Nor do clinicians need to move onto the next facility, unless that’s their preference. If you would rather create a familiar locum tenens routine, then consider accepting regularly scheduled, or recurring, assignment dates.
Recurring contracts are distinguished by the fact that locum tenens providers return to the same hospital, clinic, or healthcare organization on a defined, repeating basis. That could work out to be one long weekend every month, one week a month, every two weeks, or whatever arrangement is agreed on by provider and facility. The predictability of recurring assignments enables clinicians to plan personal and other professional commitments. Simultaneously, they offer the latitude to build in well-deserved breaks to decompress or engage in spirit-affirming activities that help prevent burnout.
What’s more, physicians and advanced practitioners can expand their comfort levels with the facility and community with each appearance—less time required to get oriented equals more time to focus on delivering high-quality care to people.
Facilities Also Enjoy a Sense of Stability
Locum tenens providers assist facilities in insuring continuity of care. Plus, bringing in additional clinicians helps lighten the caseload for permanent staff members, reducing the need for overtime, and thereby, lessening at least one factor known to contribute to provider burnout.
Recurring contracts with specific locum tenens practitioners add the benefit of familiarity. Both clinician and facility staff get to know each other a little more with each set of shifts. That eases acclimation and builds trust, both of which enhance continuity of care and encourage collegial working environments.
Patients Benefit, Too
Patients are the ultimate beneficiary of the locum tenens relationship. Consistent schedules between facility and locum tenens professionals facilitate deeper associations with patients and families, a component that’s been linked with greater patient satisfaction. Reconnecting with people to address their ongoing health concerns also illustrates for clinicians how impactful they can be, and that acknowledgement can promote greater career satisfaction.
If you wish to learn more about the benefits of locum tenens, call 800-928-0229 to speak with a dedicated All Star consultant, or contact us online.
