The U.S. is facing a critical shortage in physicians and advanced practice providers, with projections from the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) estimating the deficit reaching 86,000 physicians by 2036.
Locum tenens can help fill this gap. Beyond simply filling vacancies, locum tenens offers facilities the flexibility to respond quickly to fluctuating patient demand, seasonal surges, and unexpected provider absences — all while maintaining quality standards and protecting revenue streams.
What is Locum Tenens?
Locum tenens is Latin for “to hold the place of.” Locum tenens refers to physicians and advanced practice providers who take temporary assignments at hospitals, clinics, or medical facilities to fill staffing gaps. Locum tenens roles can range from a few days to more than a year and be part-time or full-time. It is estimated more than 90% of healthcare facilities in the U.S. use locum tenens to cover gaps in staffing created by vacations, staff shortages, or high patient volume. Facilities will even use locum tenens to “try out” a clinician before hiring them.
And while locum tenens and per-diem work both fill temporary gaps, per-diem jobs usually don’t have a fixed schedule and are set up directly between facilities and clinicians. Locum tenens clinicians work with a staffing agency and sign contracts with fixed starting and end dates.
Locum tenens is increasingly becoming part of an integrated workforce rather than a short-term coverage option. Recent insights from Staffing Industry Analysts (SIA) reinforce that locum tenens is one of the few segments of healthcare staffing still posting steady growth while other categories contract or stagnate. This makes one thing stand out: the time has arrived for hospitals, clinics, and health systems to embrace locums as a core strategy instead of as a last-minute fix. At Floyd Lee Locums, these trends are playing out in real time as facilities lean on locums to preserve healthcare access, protect revenue, and support their clinicians.
7 Benefits of Locum Tenens for Healthcare Facilities
1. Improve staffing flexibility
Flexibility is the hallmark of locum tenens staffing. Facilities can strategically use locum tenens physicians and advanced practice providers on a regular basis or for critical needs. This allows facilities to avoid permanent hiring commitments, release underperformers, and explore a “try before you buy” approach. Using locum tenens staffing for clinical needs at key points can relieve physician stress, create room in your staffing schedule, and save costs related to overtime.
Locum tenens can increase your facility’s flexibility by helping with:
- Improving responsiveness to patient volume changes
- Permanent providers’ vacations, parental leave, or long-term illness leave
- Filling vacancies while hiring permanent staff
- Avoiding overstaffing
- Testing new models, service lines, or departments
- Maintaining continuity without long-term commitments
Locum tenens can also be useful for filling a staffing gap with someone who is accustomed to quickly assessing a situation and adjusting on-the-fly. Locum tenens clinicians are used to landing in stressful environments and learning quickly.
Staffing flexibility is one of the biggest reasons facilities use locum tenens: it helps them stay nimble, protect patient access, and keep the workforce balanced without committing to permanent staffing.
2. Ensure continuity of care
When a clinician is unexpectedly absent, locum tenens can keep care moving without canceling or rescheduling appointments or overburdening permanent clinicians. When you can fill a gap quickly or proactively, you reduce pressure on the remaining team, improving symptoms of burnout and maintaining patient satisfaction.
With Floyd Lee Locums, unexpected locums support can be arranged fast enough to make a real difference, sometimes within days. That’s what one of our partners experienced recently in Ohio. It was a Thursday, and they suddenly found themselves without a GI physician for procedures scheduled on Monday. They called us for advice, but we provided a physician, too.
Our in-house credentialing, licensing, travel, client support, and recruiter teams worked together to name-clear a physician in 24 hours and get him to the facility by Monday morning. Everyone knew the stakes – it meant a small Ohio town got to serve its vulnerable patients.
This is one of the clearest ways locum tenens can support a healthcare facility: it helps keep patients on the schedule and preserve continuity of care.
3. Promote work-life balance for your clinicians
Burnout is one of the top reasons clinicians leave the workforce. For 2025, 41.9% of physicians reported experiencing at least one symptom of burnout, according to the American Medical Association. Staffing shortages remains one of the highest causes.
Using locum tenens clinicians can give your permanent providers breathing room and ensure they take their paid time off without “checking in”. This can make a real difference in daily morale and long-term retention. It creates a healthier environment where clinicians feel valued, supported, and engaged. Facilities can experience:
- A predictable schedule where everyone has ample time off
- Improved morale
- Higher retention
- Staff who feel valued and supported
- Reduced burnout
- Stronger team culture
When clinicians are supported in taking real time away from work, they tend to return more refreshed, focused, and ready to contribute. For healthcare facilities, that balance can lead to a more resilient workforce and a better overall staff experience.
4. Expand access to care
For many healthcare facilities, expanding access to care is a challenge with the clinician shortage. However, locums can help organizations grow services while maintaining quality and continuity.
Locum tenens allows facilities to open new facilities or departments in emerging markets, bring in specialists who were not previously available, or add coverage during peak seasons so patients do not have to wait for appointments.
This flexibility is especially valuable in underserved and rural areas, where staffing shortages can make it difficult to maintain essential services. By filling gaps with locum tenens, facilities can:
- Open new facilities or departments
- Offer new specialties
- Offer telemedicine and virtual visits
- Add coverage during peak seasons to reduce wait times
- Maintain continuity of care
- Offer services in underserved or rural locations
In practice, this means locum tenens can help reduce delays, improve appointment availability, and make care reachable to more people.
5. Reduce costs
Locum tenens can be a cost-effective way to manage clinical calendars and coverage without taking on the full expense of permanent staff. Locums helps facilities bypass many of the costs tied to recruiting (such as sign-on bonuses), especially when the need is temporary or fluctuating.
Because you only pay for the shifts you need, locum tenens can create a more predictable budget. Using locum tenens can reduce overtime or last-minute premium coverage costs. It can also give you a chance to “try out” a provider before committing to a long-term relationship, lowering the risk of getting locked into a hire that isn’t the right fit.
Locum tenens can give you more control over staffing dollars while still maintaining quality access to care. It’s a practical way to balance finances with filling your staffing calendar.
6. Try out clinicians before hiring (with minimal risk)
Locum tenens gives healthcare facilities a low-risk way to assess a clinician in a real-world setting before making a permanent commitment. Instead of relying only on interviews, references, and credentials, you get to see how a provider performs with your patients, your team, your workflows, and within your facility’s culture. That can reveal far more than a hiring process ever could.
This is especially valuable because even a very qualified clinician may not be the right long-term fit for every organization. Clinical skill matters, but so does communication style, adaptability, and personality. If the fit is not right, the assignment simply ends, and the facility can move in a different direction without being tied to a long-term contract or severance concerns.
7. Maintain revenue streams and patient satisfaction
Facilities can protect revenue streams by using locum tenens, which can help patients keep appointments instead of canceling visits or sending patients to competitors. Locums also helps keep cash moving by ensuring the schedule stays as full as possible, even when a clinician leaves unexpectedly.
Just as importantly, locums supports a better patient experience. When patients keep their appointments, receive care on time, and avoid delays, satisfaction scores stay higher and continuity of care is easier to maintain. Shorter wait times and fewer disruptions also builds trust, which can make patients more likely to stay with the facility rather than look for care elsewhere.
Keeping care accessible helps preserve both the financial health of the practice and the quality of the patient relationship.
Why Use Floyd Lee Locums?
As change-makers in locum tenens staffing, we intimately understand that each client and facility is unique in their culture, needs, process, and budget. But most locum tenens companies only solve for the short-term need, leaving you with physicians still experiencing burnout, budgets out of line with revenue, and staffing plans that can’t be implemented.
So, we set out to do things differently. We created a company built on concierge service and tailored solutions that actually improves staff satisfaction, physician recruitment, patient ratings, and the budget numbers you look at every day.
At Floyd Lee Locums, you won’t find a cookie-cutter approach to staffing. Instead, we spend time listening to you, analyzing your staffing plan, and understanding your culture. We want to deliver a provider who will make you wonder why you haven’t partnered with us before.
We’ll even analyze your budget with you to ensure we can provide a return on investment you’ll be proud to show off at your next budget meeting.
| Our Competitors | With Floyd Lee Locums |
| Hidden fees and unclear rate sheets | No surprise fees, transparent structure, and clear invoices |
| High fees and sub-par service | Significantly lower fees AND concierge service |
| Standard packages no matter what you need | Unique solutions that fit your needs and budget |
| Delayed or untimely responses | A team who checks in on you |
| Send clinicians who don’t fit well | Intimate matching process to match you with clinicians who thrive in unique conditions |
| Locums is a cost center you have to justify | Locums is a profit center you are proud of |