By now, it’s a familiar tale: The pandemic crushed demand for medical services in 2020 and much of 2021. The reduced demand devastated medical staffing agencies, including those that provide locum tenens coverage. Thanks to the resilience and adaptability of companies like Interim Physicians, the industry is on pace to set records in 2022 in just two years.
Locumpedia, a locum tenens resource site, recently interviewed Interim Physicians CEO Tim Hand, along with other top industry leaders, to understand how they survived the pandemic and to hear their thoughts on the future of locum tenens.
Here are a few key excerpts:
- Citing the “huge rebound” Interim has seen in 2021 and 2022, Hand says he’s “bullish for 2022. We’re up 20% over 2021 at not-quite-the-midpoint of the year–way beyond Staffing Industry Analysts’ projection of a 7% revenue increase.”
- “We learned how much healthcare facilities depend on elective surgeries. Physicians were leery about traveling and quarantining, and airline service was unpredictable at best. We really didn’t shift out of ‘COVID mode’ until the second quarter of 2021, so we experienced more than a year of chaos across both healthcare and the staffing industry.”
- Acknowledging that COVID-19 “forced the work-from-home issue,” Hand notes, “The technology was there before we needed it, so transformation happened quickly.” As a result, “technology budgets have increased across the industry,” he says.
