One significant effect of the COVID-19 epidemic on healthcare was the reduction in income that doctors reported experiencing. Furthermore, since the pandemic’s beginning, nearly half of physicians have either switched specialties, retired from medicine altogether, or switched to nonclinical employment, as reported in a recent poll conducted by CHG Healthcare. First and foremost, it’s due to a decline in income and a loss of work-life balance.
Working as locum tenens is one solution many doctors are turning to in order to make ends meet in the face of these difficulties. You can earn up to 50 percent more per hour doing locum tenens jobs than you would in a permanent position, and you can improve your work-life balance as a doctor by working fewer hours.
We spoke with doctors at ATOM PHYSICS STAFFING to learn more about their experiences as locum tenens workers and how they came to decide to pursue this career path.
Improved Work-life Balance and Less Stress for Doctors as Local Providers
Since April 2012, one physician has been working exclusively in locum tenens positions as a local provider. He decided to move to locum tenens work to boost his salary and reduce his workload.
He says that in the beginning, it was pretty good. As he continued to provide care, he found that everything appeared to be fine.
Another doctor claims that beginning in the mid-1990s, the healthcare industry’s economics started to shift. The difficulty steadily increased. A hospital purchased his practice, and he went to work there.
Although it was initially successful, he eventually became frustrated with how much time was spent on EHRs despite his best efforts to see more patients. When he first started using a computer, he recalled entering everything extremely thoroughly to find shortcuts that would make the process go a little more quickly but before he saw patients, he always felt exhausted.
Eventually, the hospital tried to reduce his salary, so he switched to full-time locum providers’ work. Taking advantage of locum providers opportunities has allowed him to make a good livelihood and improve his work-life balance as a doctor. Even though he is far from his family due to working for a week or ten days, he can spend meaningful time with them when he returns. When he first returned home before joining the locums team, he “was scrambling like an ogre,” he adds. All that pressure caused him to spiral into a deep depression.
Set Your Hours and Enjoy Other Privileges Through Locum Staffing Agency
Doctors like the flexibility of a locum tenens job, as they may pick and choose the days they work. They get to travel. Regarding lodging, they do not have any bad experience anywhere they have been. If you get a rental car via work, you won’t have to worry about maintaining your vehicle, and the gas you use will be covered.
Craft Your Timetable for Improved Work/Life Balance
 An emergency physician at ATOM PHYSICS STAFFING says despite getting a prestigious role in one among the busiest surgery centers in the U.S., he experienced the burden of his school debt and began doing locum tenens to augment his income.
Another doctor says that he could set his hours and work whenever he pleased, in addition to increasing his income through ATOM PHYSICS STAFFING, a locum staffing agency. Without ever having to ask for time off, he was free to take vacations whenever he pleased within the bounds of his availability. This has freed him up to follow his heart, start his own business, start a blog, travel extensively, and devote more time to his household.
