Internal healthcare staffing for locums

In an ideal world, every vacant position would be filled efficiently by onboarded employees. But with more than 10% of unfilled permanent openings, organizations often end up utilizing locum tenens agencies to fill the gap, especially in rural and underserved areas where the healthcare provider shortage is intensified. 

Offering an agile way to quickly scale services up and down, locums agencies meet increased patient demand, supplement staff during peak periods, and maintain services while transitioning organizational models.

But like many in-demand services, hiring locums physicians through agencies comes at a cost—one that many health organizations find hard to gain control over and sustain long-term. 

To gain better control and greater visibility of locums spending, healthcare facilities are creating their own internal locums programs as a cost-effective way to keep up with low supply, high demand. Sound overwhelming? Let’s explore whether it’s the right choice for your organization.

What is internal healthcare staffing for locums?

Internal healthcare staffing for locums develop when healthcare facilities maintain HR profiles and organize scheduling for temporary staff inside of their own organization, without the need for coordination with an external agency. With an internal locums program, the healthcare organization itself acts as a locums agency by recruiting, scheduling, and managing 1099 physician contract workers directly, eliminating agency fees.

What are the benefits of internal locums staffing?

The right staffing platform should save your organization time and money, while giving you autonomy over temporary staffing processes. The main advantage is you will no longer need to rely exclusively on agencies to staff your facilities. It also gives you more transparency and control in the most important aspects of locums—rates, scheduling, and invoicing.

Many healthcare facilities don’t have full visibility into the availability and licensing of floating physicians. Imagine if a physician moonlighting at one hospital within your system was also available to be scheduled at any other your other facilities. An integrated, comprehensive view of system-wide shift availability and better utilization of the physician workforce is the biggest advantage of internal locums.

Syncx’s provider portal has other distinct benefits as well. For instance, it gives your flexible physician workforce the ability to self-select their shifts, eliminating the burden on internal resources and endless manual data entry. Plus, it integrates with the entire Syncx system for streamlined time approvals and credentialing. This removes a layer of complexity from the process while speeding time to fill, simplifying the locums process for everyone involved.

While technology plays a critical role, equally important is the human touch. Alongside our advanced tech solutions, we provide dedicated resources to assist with float pool development. Our team aids in recruitment efforts and compensation negotiations, and assigns our in-house experts to guide you. 

Is internal locums staffing right for you?

The main question to ask when determining whether an internal locums program is right for a healthcare organization is: How great is the reliance on locums? If you only rely on locum staffing occasionally, then you are probably best served by a traditional agency. But if you use temporary staff frequently, and incur high fees as a result, then internal locum staffing may be your best option.

This was the case with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), the largest medical non-governmental employer in Pennsylvania. The organization paying high fees to locums agencies until it launched its internal locums program with Syncx. Our float pool technology allowed them to automate many parts of their process, manage scheduling more efficiently, avoid high fees, and also created an organization-wide view of which physicians were available, and when and where they were available. 

How to establish internal healthcare staffing for locums

So what do you need to set up this kind of program? The right technology. You want to look for a float pool management partner (like Syncx!) with one, centralized tool that can provide the following:

• Recruitment and onboarding of providers
• Credentialing management
• System-wide scheduling
• Scheduling dispute management
• Rate transparency
• Invoicing with no hidden costs
• Payroll processing
• A personal account manager to handle service concerns

Change is hard, but not with Syncx

Despite these huge advantages, many healthcare facilities are reluctant to start an internal locum agency for two main reasons: change management, not knowing where to start, and concerns over disruption to patient care.

That’s where we come in! Syncx doesn’t wish you luck and move on. We walk you step by step through the process from the first working clinician to the full creation of a flexible workforce that you can leverage.

Here at Syncx, we recognize the significance of locum tenens in the industry and acknowledge its value as a resource to relieve pressure on medical staff. However, we also understand the concerns surrounding cost. We’re not here to justify the expense or subtly push clients to utilize more locums. Instead, we are dedicated to helping gain control of locums spend, and best leverage the talent they already have if that’s a priority.

What truly sets us apart? We are not a recruitment agency, but a neutral partner here to help you develop and manage your physician resources to provide the best care. While many MSPs struggle to balance candidate and agency needs alongside client demands, our singular focus is helping you achieve your goals.

Let’s chat about whether an internal locum program is right for your organization. No pressure, just solutions. Book a demo today to get started!