Locum Tenens and Physician Staffing Case Studies.
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Emergency Medicine & Hospital Medicine
A local emergency physician group that treats 40,000 patients a year dissolves their group to become hospital employees. The hospital does not use a regional or national contract group to staff and manage their ED or Hospital Medicine services. The burden of guaranteeing optimal physician staffing is now on the hospital and its physician director of the ED. The hospital is located in a semi-rural area with the nearest metropolitan area being 2 ½ hours away. The practice is already short one or two physicians and they have another ED physician turnover. Current physicians are new employees, feeling overworked and the hospital is concerned about additional physicians leaving the practice. There is an immediate need for additional physicians who are capable of working in a high volume ED to maintain appropriate staffing levels to optimize patient care.
Meanwhile, the hospital is experiencing a similar physician shortage with its hospital medicine services. The need is for a hospitalist capable of working in a busy hospital, cover a full seven-day rotation, unopposed to working as a nocturnist, and who is not already tied to a permanent seven-on, seven-off job.
The hospital secures the services of MedLink and several other contingency placement firms. MedLink ramps up recruitment efforts and secures five physicians over a period of 12 months to stabilize the ED physician schedule, as well as three experienced hospitalists who commit to covering all gaps in coverage for a 120 day period, allowing the hospital to stabilize its hospitalist scheduling while they recruit for the full-time positions.
MedLink assisted in licensing, credentialing and scheduling “work interviews” for the hospital’s own internal candidates which resulted in the hospital hiring a total of four full-time physicians to complete the group. Additionally, MedLink representatives work with the hospital’s physician recruiter and builds solid working relationship with the ED Director. Over time the ED Director feels like he has the resources and support to stabilize the group and sees light at the end of the tunnel. MedLink is available to him 24/7 and becomes his “go to” resource to assist in addressing any issues.