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More doctors are turning to locum tenens work now than at any time before, and the figures bear it out. Every year upwards of 52,000 physicians and advanced practice providers sign on for a stretch of locum duty, and close to 90% of healthcare facilities across the United States turn to locum tenens hands whenever their own ranks run thin.

Should you be weighing the move yourself, few decisions in front of you will count for as much as which locum tenens company you cast your lot with, for the agency beside you shapes the calibre of the work sent your way, how fast your credentialing is carried through, how painlessly the matters of getting there and having a roof sort themselves out, and even how firm a hand reaches for you when something turns sour.

In this guide the spadework has been done for you … 😊

How We Ranked These Locum Tenens Companies

Better than 10 physician staffing agencies were set side by side and judged on:

• what their recruiters said of them
• how well satisfied their physicians were
• the work they had waiting,
• the credentialing support they extended,
• the sweep of specialties they answered to
• the name each one had built
• the W-2 and 1099 employment options, where available
• the travel and housing assistance provided
• the pay competitiveness

Whether locum tenens is untrodden ground for you or you are only hunting a worthier agency than the one you have, this guide spreads your choices open and helps you fix on the company that agrees best with where you mean to take your career.

Quick Comparison of the Best Locum Tenens Companies in the USA

1). MPLT Healthcare

MPLT Healthcare is a locum tenens agency raised on one plain conviction: pay a provider fairly and keep the road uncluttered.

Begun in 2012 and seated in Boca Raton, Florida, the firm bends its attention to doctors and the nurse practitioners and physician assistants who work beside them, right across all states of the USA, pairing each one with recruiters versed in their field and a single steady person to turn to for everything.

What marks MPLT out from the rest is the marriage of generous pay and a genuinely close hand.

The agency holds out weekly wages, the cost of getting there and being housed settled before you set off, and the insurance that shields you against a malpractice claim paid on your behalf through a carrier of A+ standing.

It keeps its own credentialing and licensing people under one roof as well, working by the rules that the Joint Commission sets for hospitals, that NAMSS holds its credentialing staff to, and that NALTO asks of locum firms, and that trims away much of the toing and froing and shortens the wait before many an assignment can begin.

Pros:

• Handsome pay across a wide spread of specialties
• Weekly wages, with travel and lodging covered before departure
• The cover that guards you against malpractice and injury claims, paid for you
• Its own credentialing and licensing team
• Recruiters who know your field, and one person to turn to throughout
• Warm words from providers on how quickly recruiters answer

Cons:

• A narrower reach across the country than some of the giants
• Slimmer pickings among the rarer subspecialties
• A quieter name than the older houses it stands against

Verdict: MPLT is the best choice for providers who want sound pay, wages every week, and a recruiter who stays at their shoulder from the first day to the last.

2). Weatherby Healthcare

Weatherby Healthcare stands among the front-runners in locum tenens, set up in 1995 and carried on the shoulders of CHG Healthcare. What lifts it above the crowd is the sheer size of the help standing behind each provider, with separate crews minding credentialing, minding travel, minding lodging, and someone within reach at any hour of the day or night when a provider needs them.

In a 2022 survey run by CHG Healthcare, Weatherby came first for consultants who were affable and swift with a reply, and second for both pay and the amount of work on offer, out of eight of the strongest agencies going.

Doctors, and the physician assistants and nurse practitioners who share the work, speak well of Weatherby for recruiters schooled in their own field, who stay close through the whole of an assignment and keep both sides well informed from one week to the next. The same praise comes back time and again for the help given with licensing and credentialing, for how neatly getting there and being housed are arranged, and for the wide sweep of American specialties it reaches, telehealth among them.

Should a patient ever bring a suit against you, the insurance that answers for it is folded into the assignment, most often written at a million per claim and three million in all, with the kind that covers claims surfacing after your last day to be had when the need arises.

The thing you give up for all this is that Weatherby will not always be the one paying most, so physicians with an eye fixed on the hourly figure tend to hold its offer up against others. A few providers remark that credentialing can crawl along or ask a mountain of forms of them, and that whatever you spend from your own pocket may be repaid a step behind your wages. Sought-after assignments, too, can be spoken for in no time, such is the hunger for them.

Pros:

• Contented physicians and consultants quick to respond
• Separate teams for credentialing, for travel, and for lodging
• Work waiting across a great many states and specialties
• Malpractice cover, with the after-you-leave sort on offer too
• The MyWeatherby portal for credentials and time sheets

Cons:

• The hourly figure is not always the highest to be found
• Credentialing can move slowly
• Money spent on expenses may be slow finding its way back
• The popular assignments are taken quickly
• Recruiter experience varies by region

Verdict: Weatherby suits the specialist who wants a recruiter firmly in their corner and every practical arrangement ticking over cleanly.

3). CompHealth

CompHealth was there at the very birth of locum tenens in the USA medicine, opening its doors in 1979, and it has stayed among the largest physician staffing houses in the land in all the years since. With openings running to better than a hundred medical specialties and thousands of short and long spells of work the country over, it is the name pressed on physicians dipping a toe into locum tenens for the first time, and that is down to how far its reach stretches and the long acquaintance it keeps with hospitals and whole health systems.

A good many physicians think warmly of the seasoned recruiters CompHealth fields and of the backing they find when it comes time to talk terms, to see to licensing, and to get through credentialing.

For those on locum work, CompHealth meets the licensing fees where they fall due, furnishes malpractice cover that leaves little uncovered, and lays on a private roof over your head, the journey there, and a way of getting about, all free of charge and for the whole run of the assignment.

The agency draws notice too for its app and the portal made to sit easy on a phone, MyCompHealth, which keeps a provider current on what an assignment holds and on hours logged, alongside money paid straight into the account each week and, for allied travellers, work benefits and a matched 401(k).

Pros:

• Openings across more than 100 specialties and upwards of 70 healthcare callings
• A vast web of hospitals and health systems, with first sight of fresh work
• Recruiters who steer the newcomer to locum work with a helpful word
• Dependable credentialing and licensing borne by a team of its own
• The MyCompHealth portal for assignment particulars, hours, and credentialing papers
• Money in the account weekly, malpractice cover, and travel and lodging arranged

Cons:

• Less of the personal touch than you would meet at a smaller agency
• What a recruiter is like can shift with the specialty and the region
• Room to haggle over pay may be tighter than at the boutique houses

Verdict: CompHealth is good for physicians who are after the widest field of assignments to choose from, and a trusted old hand at the head of the trade.

4). VISTA Staffing Solutions

VISTA Staffing Solutions earns its name among physicians who want steady, well-ordered work inside federal and government medicine. Started in 1990 and settled in Cottonwood Heights, Utah, the agency runs deep roots into the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Indian Health Service, and the Department of Defense.

This locum tenens staffing company has carried off Inavero’s “Best of Staffing” honour ten separate times, in the Talent count and the Client count alike.

Physicians tend to speak of VISTA as tidy and sure-footed, and never more so than while credentialing is underway. Its recruiters have a name for telling you straight what an assignment will ask and what it will give, and many a doctor is glad to find little that startles them once the work gets going.

VISTA answers to better than sixty medical specialties, from everyday care and hospital work through to the surgical subspecialties, and holds out both locum tenens and permanent posts. Should your heart be set on working mostly in private practice, mind you, wider pickings may lie elsewhere.

Pros:

• A firm footing among federal and government healthcare facilities
• Plain speaking from start to finish of the hiring
• A helping hand through healthcare credentialing + licensing
• A well-earned name in locum tenens, with a shelf of industry awards
• Recruiters who set your expectations where they ought to sit
• Reach across 60-plus medical specialties and every kind of setting nationwide

Cons:

• Better suited to physicians with a leaning toward government work
• Thinner pickings than some of the bigger agencies in certain private settings

Verdict: VISTA fits those drawn to work with the VA, the IHS, the DoD, and other corners of federal medicine.

5). Hayes Locums

Doctors own this house and doctors run it, which is what pulls Hayes Locums out of the crowd.

Begun in 2012 and seated in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the firm would sooner know a physician, or a nurse practitioner or physician assistant, for years on end than push bodies into posts by the hundred. You can hear as much in what physicians say about the place. A great many of them kept the same recruiter through year upon year, and count that unbroken thread among the best of what they got.

The name Hayes has built for licensing and credentialing help is a solid one too, above all for a physician taking work in a state new to them or in a town with too few doctors to go round. Consultants here know one specialty and know it well, whole teams are given over to licensing and to credentialing alone, and travel people carry every arrangement through to the end.

The one complaint that keeps turning up in reviews online about Hayes Locums is that their recruiters call and write a good deal, and once you have looked into locum work with them, they will keep coming back to you. Physicians who like being treated as a person rather than a placement generally forgive it and rate Hayes high.

Pros:

• Owned by doctors and run by them
• A recruiter relationship built around the individual
• Strong backing through licensing and credentialing
• Real openings in rural places and towns short of doctors
• Consultants versed in a single specialty, with travel people to match

Cons:

• Recruiters may reach out more often than some physicians care for
• A narrower field of assignments than the largest staffing houses offer
• Certain highly specialised positions are limited

Verdict: Hayes suits those who want one recruiter they can keep for the long haul and attention shaped around them.

6). Medicus Healthcare Solutions

Medicus Healthcare Solutions never made much noise about itself, yet somewhere along the way it climbed to fourth largest among the locum tenens firms in the United States, if Staffing Industry Analysts are to be believed. It opened in 2004 and keeps its home in Windham, New Hampshire. The work there is less about piling up job listings than about the fit itself. A physician is set beside an assignment that suits the years they have behind them, the hours they are able to give, and where they mean to end up. Doing it that way has won the firm physicians who stay put rather than drift off after one posting.

Read through what physicians write of the place and the recruiters come off well, quick to answer, straight about what they know, and no trouble to deal with while a hire is being put together. The paperwork side moves at a decent clip too, both the licensing and the credentialing behind it, with word reaching you at intervals instead of a long quiet nothing while you wonder.

The larger houses will always have more jobs on their books than Medicus does. Ask the physicians, though, and most say the recruiter you get here is worth more than the longer list you get elsewhere.

Pros:

• Fourth largest locum tenens firm in the country
• Recruiters quick to answer and straight with you
• Licensing sorted and credentials cleared without the wait
• Assignments matched with real care
• Strong physician retention

Cons:

• A slimmer choice of work in some specialties
• Less brand recognition than larger competitors

Verdict: Best for locum physicians who want a recruiter who knows them and looks after them, rather than the longest list of jobs to scroll through.

7). LocumTenens.com (Jackson Healthcare)

LocumTenens.com is put together around one idea, that a physician or advanced practice provider should have the widest field of work to pick from. It stands behind the name of Jackson Healthcare, dates from 1995, and runs the biggest locum tenens job board the trade has, which places it among the largest full-service locum tenens agencies in the USA. Better than 7,000 clinicians are placed through it every year, across near enough every specialty worth naming.

Its online platform, the LT Online Experience, lets you look through the work on offer, put yourself forward, watch your credentialing inch along, and keep the details of an assignment in order, all without living on the telephone or in your inbox.

Plenty of doctors take to the ease of it, and to how much work there is to be had, above all if they do not mind which part of the country they land in. The recruiters draw good words as a rule for staying with you the whole way through a hire, and what physicians write of them speaks of steadiness, of honest dealing, and of travel and contracts that come together without trouble.

The only downside of it is that LocumTenens.com has a list of postings that long can leave a physician new to locum work unsure where to even begin, and the whole thing may feel less close and personal than it would at a smaller boutique agency.

Pros:

• Among the largest locum tenens job networks in the country
• Work across a broad sweep of specialties and settings
• An online platform that is easy to browse and easy to manage an assignment from
• Recruiters and credentialing staff who help, with travel handled well
• The weight of Jackson Healthcare behind it and 30-plus years in the trade

Cons:

• So many listings can overwhelm a physician new to locum work
• It may feel less personal than a boutique agency would

Verdict: Perfect locums staffing company for those who want the largest choice of assignments going and a platform that is no trouble to use.

8). AMN Healthcare

AMN Healthcare ranks among the largest healthcare staffing companies the United States has, putting physicians into leading hospitals, into teaching medical centres, and into the big health systems the country over. It began in 1985, keeps its base in San Diego, reaches across a hundred specialties and more, and deals in travel work, per diem shifts, locum tenens, contract posts, and permanent ones alike.

What genuinely sets it apart is that certain assignments come with a choice between 1099 and W-2 employment, and that choice is still an uncommon thing in locum tenens.

Physicians who want solid ground under them, careful handling of the compliance side, and a way into organisations known nationwide tend to go with AMN. The company sees to licensing, to credentialing, to malpractice cover, and to every arrangement of getting you there and back, and for many providers it can push a state licence through faster than the usual pace. Being as large as it is, though, some physicians find the whole business more ordered and more corporate than it would be at a smaller agency.

Pros:

• A way into major hospitals and teaching medical centres
• Both W-2 and 1099 employment where an assignment allows it
• Solid backing on compliance, on licensing, and on credentialing
• A nationwide network reaching 100-plus specialties
• Everything seen to, from the malpractice policy and the flights out to where you will be staying and the contracts that go with it

Cons:

• A more corporate feel than you meet at smaller agencies
• The administrative side can move slowly
• The recruiter bond may feel less personal

Verdict: Ideal for physicians with an eye on the major health systems, or those who would rather be employed on a W-2.

9). Barton Associates

Barton Associates has made its name on being quick. If what you want is your next assignment settled without a long wait, it belongs on your list.

It started in 2001, works out of Gilbertville, Massachusetts, and places physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, dentists and CRNAs in all fifty states. One recruiter stays with a physician for the whole of it, so there is a single person to speak to from that first conversation right through to the day the work begins. Physicians bring that up often in what they write about the firm, and they bring it up with real approval.

Barton keeps widening the circle of healthcare facilities it works with, and Staffing Industry Analysts count it among the largest staffing firms going. What you get does depend somewhat on which recruiter you draw, but the praise that comes back most is for how fast things move and for how well a physician is kept in the picture rather than left waiting on news that never comes. The firm carries the whole run of the work itself, the recruiting, the credentialing, the licensing, and every arrangement of getting you where you need to be.

Pros:

• One recruiter with you from beginning to end
• Placements settled quickly
• Assignments to be had in every state
• Word reaching you steadily while a hire is underway
• Real help with licensing and getting credentialed

Cons:

• What assignment is available leans heavily on your specialty
• Recruiter experience can vary
• Thinner choices in some highly specialised fields

Verdict: Perfect for those who want hiring done quickly and one recruiter looking after it.

10). Aya Locums

Aya Locums does physician staffing in a way few of its rivals do, setting a live recruiter beside a well-made digital platform.

It opened in 2022 with Aya Healthcare behind it, the largest healthcare staffing company in the country by revenue, so a physician gets the weight of a major organisation and still keeps most of the hiring within easy reach of a screen. Sending in your CV, looking through the work on offer, seeing what each posting pays, following an assignment as it moves along, nearly all of it runs through the Aya Locums portal and app.

Physicians who take easily to a screen tend to like how little friction there is in the thing, and how quickly the platform answers them. The pay, the particulars of the assignment and what sort of facility you would be walking into are all there to read before you commit to anything. Aya has climbed fast in locum tenens, though some physicians feel its physician arm is still earning the sort of name that several older locum tenens agencies took decades to build.

Pros:

• The largest healthcare staffing company in the USA standing behind it
• A modern platform for running an assignment and seeing what it pays
• Getting started and filing your hours both kept simple
• A nationwide spread of physician and advanced practice work, still growing
• Recruiters who look after you closely once your application is in

Cons:

• The physician locum division is newer than several established competitors
• Physicians wanting a recruiter who truly knows them may do better at a smaller agency

Verdict: Best for physicians who would rather do it all through good digital tools than over the telephone.

How to Choose the Right Locum Tenens Company

When weighing one locum tenens company against another, try not to let the pay rate be the whole of it. What they pay you counts, of course, but the help standing behind you can shape the year just as much as the figure does.

To begin with, consider the recruiter. Look for one who speaks plainly, who answers you without a week going by, and who knows something of your own specialty. From there, ask outright what the agency will carry for you: the licensing, the credentialing, the getting there, the roof you sleep under, and the insurance that answers a malpractice suit. At the same time, read the contract slowly, so that the way you are paid, what the assignment expects of you, and every other condition tucked inside it are all understood before your name goes on it.

Finally, read what physicians say about the firm, and see whether the work it has going suits the hours you can give, the places you would willingly go, and where you mean to take your career. Also, there is nothing to stop you signing with more than one agency. In fact, doing so leaves you more to compare and a freer hand in choosing what fits you best.

FAQs

Why is it called locum tenens?

The name is Latin, and the words mean to hold the place of someone. That someone is a doctor who is away or a post that has sat empty, and the locum is the physician who stands in it until whoever belongs there arrives or returns.

What does “tenens” mean?

Tenens is the holding. Locum is the place. Say the two words together and you have described a doctor holding a place that belongs to somebody else.

Do locums get paid?

Yes, a locum physician is paid for every assignment they finish. What they earn depends on the specialty they work in, where in the country the assignment sits, and how many years they have behind them. Most agencies pay the flights or mileage on top, put you up while you are there, and buy the policy that protects you if a patient sues.

What are the disadvantages of locum work?

A locum chooses their own hours, which is the appeal, but every hospital has its own system, its own record software, and its own way of doing things, and a locum learns all of it afresh at each new place. Work is also easier to find in some specialties and some states than in others.

Which physician specialties are most in demand for locum tenens?

Hospitals ask most often for someone to cover the emergency department, the wards, or the intensive care unit. Anaesthesia and radiology are chased hard as well, and psychiatry is short of hands almost everywhere. On the primary care side, both family medicine and internal medicine stay busy year after year.

How long does it take to start a locum tenens assignment?

A few weeks, if your licence is in order and nothing else gets in the way. Longer if you still need a licence for that state or have credentialing to clear first. The hospital, the state’s rules, and the assignment itself all decide when you actually begin.