Credentialing EM Physicians Best Left To Physician Recruiters

I’m an executive with a medical group responsible for staffing emergency departments in hospitals all across the country.  I don’t have to make critical, life-or-death decisions like the EM physicians under my supervision.  But I know all-too-well the headaches which result when one of these physicians is unable to work their shift, for whatever reason. Sometimes I can ask existing staff to jump in and work an extra shift or two. But eventually, if the physician is out of action for an extended period of time, I have to find a locums tenens (“temporary”) physician to work some shifts until I can find a permanent replacement.

These locums tenens physicians are in high demand in our industry because they can pick up and move within a matter of a few weeks.  They could probably start working a lot sooner than that if it weren’t for the extensive approval process and paperwork that has to be submitted to the healthcare organizations which contract with us to run their EDs.  Our company formerly did all this recruiting and credentialing work ourselves but lately I’ve been calling in a locum tenens physician recruiter which specializes in emergency medicine. This recruitment company has a reputation for both locating and expediting the credentialing process for locum tenens emergency medicine physicians. While it might easily take us 45 days to locate and credential a locum tenens ER physician, it only takes them a few days.

When you think about, we’re an outsource for the hospitals and healthcare systems who contract with us, so why wouldn’t we outsource some of our functions to another company? That kind of recruitment work isn’t our core competency, so I am only too happy to let a professional locum tenens physician recruiter do it!