LocumLife - August 2008 - (Page 19)

Urgent Care A Karen Tull continuing education, but now, we are finding that many facilities—especially those larger in size, such as urgent care groups with multiple clinic sites— are actually utilizing locum tenens in a planned fashion. They know their needs in terms of seasonality, and request additional coverage for those months. “Urgent care professionals are also being utilized to hold the place for future permanent physicians. If an urgent care practice is experiencing growth or adding a clinic, administrators want coverage in the meantime until they can recruit a permanent physician. So, the locum tenens physician will come in temporarily and rotate with the other physicians on a regular schedule.” Just who are the locum tenens professionals choosing to practice urgent care? “We have physicians out of residency who enjoy gaining exposure to various practice environments,” notes Ms. Kloehn. “Middle-age physicians seem to provide urgent care services on a moonlighting basis; and we also have many physicians older than age 55 with 20 to 30 years of experience in medicine, who typically prefer to take their spouses along and enjoy traveling to different areas. “Often, these physicians earn between $140,000$180,000 annually or $65/hour to $90/hour. There is not a significant difference in salary according to region. You can make a full-time salary and only provide services 3 days a week, or you can double that up by blocking your hours even more and having off for 5 or 10 days at a time. It is a great opportunity for a physician who wants to do research on the side, for example, or be more of a stay-at-home parent— all while collecting excellent compensation.” What is required of urgent care specialists interested in practicing locum tenens? “You should be AUGUST 2008 Locum tenens professionals fill the gap From allergies to fractures and all the unexpected— and inconvenient—incidences in between, locum tenens providers are there to help us resume our lives as usual. s one of the American Medical Association’s (AMA) newest specialties, urgent care is serving a growing demand within communities nationwide. With reports of 8,000 to upwards of 10,000 urgent care centers (UCCs) in the U.S. today, these settings offer services more quickly—and inexpensively—than America’s often overcrowded emergency departments, with the same quality of treatment. As more locum tenens professionals are realizing, UCCs and hospital-based clinics are providing numerous opportunities for physicians and mid-level providers with experience in urgent care/ambulatory medicine, as well as those specialists in family practice, emergency medicine, internal medicine, and pediatrics. ANSWERING THE NEED Unfortunately, these much-needed facilities are not located within every community. “It has been my experience that rural areas do not have as much access to urgent care facilities,” states Andrea Kloehn, president of Morrisville, North Carolina-based Medstaff National Medical Staffing. “These centers are usually found in neighborhoods where there is a population of 20,000 or more. The ones I have been exposed to are usually private practices owned by a physician or physician group. Also, megahospital systems in larger urban environments will often have urgent care centers located throughout a community. Smaller hospitals may operate one in an outlying town.” She continues, “We have been assisting urgent care facilities with their coverage needs since our inception in 1985. In the past, we primarily handled gaps when physicians took time off for vacations or LocumLife 19

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LocumLife - August 2008

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