I am 3rd year Resident. I am older, 38. 340k in debt looking for high income. My wife has a job with benefits so i dont need that. I want to live in my current state OH, low cost of living. Is it better to work as 1099 for Temahealth, Envision, Shumacher, USACS or with locum companies. What has your experience been both negative and positives. Any cautionary tales. How does one do this effectively. Thanks
Anyone with travel experience with the big groups locums
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I was 38 when I graduated residency with about ~380K in debt. I did locums for the last 2 years of residency. For myself, local FT gigs are greatly preferable to traveling but that's a personal preference. I just don't like traveling anymore and enjoy being at home even though I'm not married and no kids other than the furry variety. However, I know plenty of people who thoroughly enjoy the locums lifestyle and make a lot of great money doing it. One word of advice though is to not get hung up on the hourly rate when comparing local gigs to locums. Always factor in the travel time and downtime that you aren't getting paid. I could probably make $10-$20/hr more doing locums nearby but the travel time would completely negate any monetary advantage so it's never been worth it to me.
If you have looked around locally and can't find anything, then sure... there's nothing wrong with doing locums for the big CMGs or staffing firms. I know plenty of people doing "strike team" for TH, Apollo and set their own schedule and fly home when they aren't working. They seem to enjoy the lifestyle. I worked for Weatherby when I did locums and really had no complaints. It was always pretty smooth. At the moment though, I work a local gig and live 5mins away from the hospital, sleep in my own bed at night, and that kind of convenience is worth something to me.
Research TH, Schumacher, EMCare, Apollo, etc.. and talk to the one that has more sites closer to your area. That would help ensure that you don't have to travel that much. Good luck.
If you have looked around locally and can't find anything, then sure... there's nothing wrong with doing locums for the big CMGs or staffing firms. I know plenty of people doing "strike team" for TH, Apollo and set their own schedule and fly home when they aren't working. They seem to enjoy the lifestyle. I worked for Weatherby when I did locums and really had no complaints. It was always pretty smooth. At the moment though, I work a local gig and live 5mins away from the hospital, sleep in my own bed at night, and that kind of convenience is worth something to me.
Research TH, Schumacher, EMCare, Apollo, etc.. and talk to the one that has more sites closer to your area. That would help ensure that you don't have to travel that much. Good luck.
Thanks. I am looking at a job where i can walk to from my current house. I did the math with retirement and all and I think it its not too far from locums. I I had not considered the downtime with travel etc s well as recovery time and the opportunity cost tah involves. May be I will Take a job close to home and moonlight on the side. Thanks this was helpfull.
From my experience dealing with locums and the big CMGs, going locums would always yield the higher rates. And being a "local" locums doc seems more efficient, if you're lucky enough to live in an area with multiple locums options that's driveable (or if you're really lucky, thats walkable, like you mentioned). Within 3-4 hours drive, my area has locums options paying $75-100 per hour more than what my city has to offer.
The main trick was finding an agency that would offer the better rates. Some agencies (C0mpHealth, W3atherby) were constantly lowballing me for these sites, even offering rates that were actually LOWER than what I'm paid at my permanent part-time job, others offered only $20-40/h more, which to me isn't worth the opportunity/hassle cost.
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Any harm in giving out your resume to locum agencys during the intitial courting phase? thanks
This may constitute an agreement and any locums jobs u find on your own, you may have to pay royalty to the locums company. Or they may claim they found it for you.
Disclaimer: I have not done locums and I am not a lawyer.
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I wouldn't give them your resume until you've agreed in principle to contract for a site through them.
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Right. Always get rates, specific location, and travel reimbursement sorted before starting an arrangement.
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Why?
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Why? Because, once you give them a resume, you're tied to them. They don't own you, but you can't go to anyone else. It's them, or no one.
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Can you expand on that? Why do they own you?
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If they get your resume, they present it to hospital "X". If you don't take it, then go to hospital "X" yourself, they'll sue you, and win. If you go with locums company "A", and they present your resume to X, and you don't take it, then go to locums company "B", and they present you to hospital X, and you take it, they'll (A) sue you, and win.
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Good to know. Thanks for clarifying.
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What kind of hotels do these CMGs put you up in? Are we talking the flagship Marriotts or some bum Courtyard in a strip mall? My tentative plan would be to do purely locums early in my career and spend a lot of time overseas, so I'd essentially be living out of hotels on assignment for the vast majority of my time stateside, hence the question.
(Obviously in many if not most cases you'd be in BFE that doesn't have any decent hotels, but I'm talking in case they're available)
(Obviously in many if not most cases you'd be in BFE that doesn't have any decent hotels, but I'm talking in case they're available)
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Generally whatever hotel I request (within reason). Unfortunately I work in places where the best hotel is a Residence Inn.
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Can you book the hotel yourself and ask for reimbursement? This could be a good way to get qualifying nights and points for platinum status with spg/marriot or hyatt.
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My company books Marriott and pays directly. I get all the points and night credit (76 nights this year!). As long as it is not some pre-negotiated discount corporate rate you will usually get the credit, and don't have to pay out of pocket. It can sometimes take months to get reimbursement. One advantage to paying out of pocket, is that if you use a card like the Chase Sapphire Preferred, which gets 3X points on travel, you can rack up additional miles essentially for free. If you use a personal Amex Platinum, you get 5X on Airfare as well. For gasoline I use the Citi Preferred/Prestige as I get 3X points on gas. For my everyday spend I use the Amex Blue for Business which gets 2X points on EVERY purchase.
