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I heard one of the hospitals in Milwaukee was paying $450/h. That was a few months ago. I don't know what they are paying now. It was Aurora St. Luke's using Ark (Arc?) Staffing.
Locums Market Temp Check
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Wisconsin pays well.
But I think people want to be in the real big cities or big metro areas like Los Angeles , New York City , Dallas , even Denver or Washington DC.
Not Milwaukee (which isn’t a bad city my friends tell me). But my friend went back home to Dallas cause that’s home for him for less pay.
I’d like to be down in Miami or Fort Lauderdale area. But lots of competition from snowbirds traveling down now.
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Oh yeah. My friend works there. They wanted a hair strand test.
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I don’t want to be in a sprawling megalopolis with 6 lane highways and road rage. Live there now and hate it. Want something midsize like Milwaukee but warmer. That’s just me.
That is weird.
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I-95 corridor in northeast. You can be 1-3 hours from the major cities and not be in the boonies.
If I was in Florida I’d probably focus on west coast central Florida jobs and north Florida coastal. Very remote places in those areas needing call coverage I think
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I’m pretty far into my career (close to retirement) and have never been drug tested.
It’s pretty standard to have a drug screen before starting a new job these days. The hair thing is unusual though. And also a pain in the ass or wherever they’re going to shave it because it’s not a strand, but a patch that is very visible if they take it off your head.
I remember during residency our hospital wanted to randomly drug test the anesthesia residents - and only the anesthesia residents. Luckily our PD was not a pushover and insisted that if they wanted to drug test people they needed to test everyone who worked in the OR and/or the entire hospital, not just us. It was really odd... I think some midlevel administrator must have read an article about anesthesia residents and drug abuse and then got a stupid idea to test us. Luckily they just backed off and abandoned the idea.
Correct. Avoid Miami to Palm beach area unless there is some need to be there.
Florida panhandle is easy money there also.
Florida is a very long state. Lots of hospitals within 2 hrs of where u want to be.
I’m credential at 4 places within 50 minutes of where I live. Another 2 hospitals within 2 hrs
Gonna to pickup another hospital soon also.
I just keep these places on backup of backup. Get ur feet in the door. Keep ur privileges.
They may need me on some random Friday usually.
I’m keeping a lot of Fridays open on my next month schedule and already been asked if I can work.
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Something similar has come up at our hospital but it’s a cognitive test for medical staff members over 70yo. The argument is that if they want to test old folks, they should test everyone.
I actually agree with that. Especially with the rate of cognitive clouding from COVID everyone seems to have- along with other long COVID symptoms.
I was piss tested by the Army 4 times last year. It got to the point that the admins actually had to tell the Army command side that they were interrupting hospital operations with the number of tests they were doing. Lol
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Sure they should test everyone - it’s best for patients to have unimpaired people… test OR nurses, Pacu nurses, scrub techs, anes techs - I don’t want a hungover pilot or flight attendant either.
I got pee tested a couple times per year in the Navy but they never asked for hair. Just seems strange.
I had to do this in college for my customer service job! But in reality they try their best to take a discreet chunk. Easier to hide if you have longer hair.
FYI. These locums companies will lie and lie. Just treat them like Trump. Don’t believe anything they say.
I had x recruiter tell me no jobs with their hospital system in Florida (lie) and re directing me to Georgia (where I also have a medical license)
Another recruiter just told my friend new locums at X hospital (lie) I just texted the chief there and they still are getting new locums.
I had x recruiter tell me no jobs with their hospital system in Florida (lie) and re directing me to Georgia (where I also have a medical license)
Another recruiter just told my friend new locums at X hospital (lie) I just texted the chief there and they still are getting new locums.
When it comes to local work, are you able to piece it together from around 5 hospitals to make 40+ weeks of work per year?
Is it typically full weeks of 5 days or do they pick and choose when you work based on days they're short?
Do you ever find yourself wanting to work on a certain week, but unable to find a place?
I've currently got 6 within 90 minutes of where I live. There's some turnover at these non-AMC hospitals but a lot of it is dominated by Envision/USAP/NAPA entities. Some of those places also need coverage and they'll credential multiple places if they accept a contract, which provides more options.
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Lucky you. Damn lucky.
I don’t really mind peeing in a cup but I refuse to get my hair cut off my scalp voluntarily to satisfy some judgmental admins who probably hit the Jack Daniel’s in the damn daily.
Nope. They can kiss my hide.
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No it’s not standard actually. You have been brainwashed. Have worked in plenty of jobs since residency. Plenty. The Minority drug test physicians.
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It IS a big deal. Don’t buy into Corporate BS. Especially considering these are the same Wall Street Bros who keep Liquor Cabinets in their damn offices. They got no business judging others.
Were they doing this before USAP took over I wonder??
I don't do full time Locums. Neither do the guys making 1.5-2 million. We all have a base w2 job than add Locums on top of that. That's why I stress the jobs with big vacation times and than do Locums on top of the base w2 job.
I will hit 7 figures by October. I don't know if I will make what they make by end of the year. Plan on taking thanksgiving and xmas week off with the kids. Will take 9 full weeks for 2024. A few mini trips here and there with 3 day weekends.
I do my damage over the weekends. That's money ball. 140K with 25 days worked this month, but next month I'm taking a break with kids back in school so down to 80k for 13 days worked. I may back fill a few days.
Well USAP has a zero tolerance policy as well… zero mj even in states where it’s legal. One guy (not in my division) tested positive after a two week vacation in Colorado - claimed it was legal there… he was gone immediately
Yeah. Usap fired doc for sexual harassment and the woman who was hit on by the male worker didn’t even file the sexual harassment!
It was the married woman’s husband who saw a text from the male.
Usap does not mess around
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I know who I won’t be working for. They want to beg and choose. Let them. People have options.
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Insane. Good for you.
Key seems to be finding places you can hit the weekends hard.
How many on call hours do you face down for your w2 each year? Like total it all up. I only see places that are about 2100 hours of total on call time (all taken as 24s, not sure if in house or not but assume they are) for the year even with compressed schedule. Paying around 450 which puts an hourly rate of 225.
What’s a fair job with a compressed schedule on an hours on call to pay ratio? Assume reasonable calls in smaller places rather than level 1 trauma
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Well right now the past 12 months I’ve done zero call hours at my previous w2 full time job. Night float team takes over at 3pm
Thanks for sharing this. Good to know what's possible. I'm sure you didn't just stumble into this setup, so gotta admire the hustle! Inspired to do the same!
how do you "fish around"?
Do you know if total billable hours like this are available for locums GI? Do you know anything about going rates for locums GI? The GI forums are dead here
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GI guy I know used to make $30k a weekend taking call at desperate hospitals in the boonies while he was building his practice. I’m not sure about the setup, but tells me he would round in the morning and spend the rest of his day sitting in a hotel.
That's a great setup and makes sense. Have a full-time W2 with lots of vacation to have a steady income, and then work locums at your choosing to supplement your income. How are the rates in Florida? For weekend shifts, are you usually in-house or on backup call? Most places I've seen only want pager calls, which doesn't seem worth it, IMHO to miss out on family time.
Indirect evidence that there is money to provide appropriate compensation for our services.
Pager call is worth it….negotiate it. My bare minimum for carrying a pager these days on weekend is $5000 to do no work. $4000 weeknights to do no work.
If they offering u $2000. Than u gotta determine how much work you will get.
What my friends and I do in these cases is split it
He will do the 7a-7p beeper. Get half the beeper rate ($1000 of $2000). Bill for the hours he works. He usually get 8-10 hrs of work. So that’s $4000-5000 for him. He gets Saturday night off.
I take over 7p-7a. Get my $4000 for Saturday night to watch college football now from home (but potentially get called in). No ob no trauma no peds.
We will flip it the next time. And I work the 7a-7p beeper.
Win win
Sometimes you gotta tandem to maximize
Stupid to take 24 hr beeper when we both have 8 hr call/shift gurantees.
That's a pretty good set up, what part of the country is this? Where can I learn more about GI locums or even research potential gigs? I'm a GI fellow right now... but that forum is dead and none of my attendings know about locums lol. The anesthesia forum is very alive and you guys would interact a lot with GI, and lots of details about anesthesia locums so I was asking here lol
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I have no idea. As with all setups like this, no one is going to give you a step-by-step roadmap. You have to be someone who is a hustler and willing to network.
Sorry, no one wants to be taking weekend calls doing non-emergent endoscopies so you can make $$$$ ~
Don't take it out on me man, it's the hospitals that want the juicy facility fee. I'm just a GI fellow trying to retire in my mid 30s!
I don’t think hospitals or agencies take a lot of new grads 1099 gi
I know with envoy (for anesthesia). They won’t like any new 1099 grads for 2 years. They want some experience docs if they are doing locums.
There was this true university academic place and they didn’t want new grad (even though he’s board certified now by May 2024) but they didn’t want him as 1099 doc for anesthesia. (That was through a big national agency)
Said he needed more experience. And another another place (envoy) said the same thing for him
Guess ortho didn't work out.
It didn't, so I ended up in IM, but I gotta make the best of the situation I'm in! Hopefully I can still retire by 35!
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Oh that sucks, what if you own the locums company though? And even in the middle of nowhere they don't want "new grads"?
I think this concept of a new grad is weird in medicine lol, seems like it transferred from outside of medicine, they're telling me after doing 2000 endoscopies in fellowship that I don't know how to do an endoscopy because I'm a "new grad"?
That's quite the arrangement. I definitely agree that working in tandem can make it worthwhile for all parties. The most I've come across is $1000/12 hr weeknight and $2000/24 hr weekend day pager call. Getting an 8-10 hr guarantee on top of that to do some scheduled cases definitely makes it more worthwhile.
For me, weeknight backup call is a win-win. If it's low volume, you get paid to just be available, and if they are busy or just have you close out the evening, you get a few additional hours, plus the potential for call back with a minimum number of hours guaranteed.
If you come across any openings similar to yours, I'd be interested. I have my IMLC, which has been well worth its weight in gold. Currently, I'm working in CA, TX, and Wisconsin, but it seems big hospitals are finally realizing that they should up their full-time offers and are trying to start phasing out locums.
You only plan to work for a couple of years?
yeah if I can swing it would be happy to grind locums/middle of nowhere GI gigs for 3 years. If I can get my coastfire stack by age 35 that **** will grow to 10M just sitting in VTI by the time I'm 55. The time saved is wayyyy more valuable than the money. Will work locums 1 - 2 months/year after age 35 and focus on my art after. I'm not that passionate about GI, but it was the most lucrative gig out of IM. Couldn't ever achieve my dream of becoming an orthochad so will settle for eaerly retirement.
This new grad business and what aneftp is saying is throwing a wrench in my plans though. How am I supposed to retire by 35 if locums doesn't want new grads! **** partner tracks too, they delay early retirement.
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I’ve had over 2 decades to network.
I do try to help newer grads out. Just a lot of networking.
GI is a different beast. So lucrative 2005-2015. Many of my friends sold out their GI centers entities to surgery partners , Amsurg etc. and they also took a cut of anesthesia collections.
Now they just want to be hospital employees.
Every procedurist contract for locums is different
My gen surgeon friend gets $3000 flat for 8 hrs than bills $250-hr after 3pm. So he has tons of incentive to operate after 3pm while doing locums
Some Gi docs do scopes for $200/per scope at VA hospitals for fee for service but they tell me the turnover is slow and the most they can scope is 10 in a day cause the staff is not motivated.
