When a practice management group is responsible for over 100 contracts across the country, it’s crucial to have a reliable staffing agency that can quickly identify and mobilize quality providers. Otherwise, they risk losing their contracts and jeopardizing physician and patient safety due to substantial staffing shortages.
Thankfully, this group chose to engage Interim Physicians as their preferred physician staffing partner in 2016. Over the last six years, Interim has consistently provided exceptional hospitalist and emergency medicine providers to cover 10-15 of their programs at a time.
A Solution for Every Challenge
Practice management groups often require help maintaining full schedule coverage for their existing contracts. However, this group enlisted Interim Physicians to help them solve some additional challenges:
- New startup contracts requiring significant coverage to augment staffing until they hired permanent providers; this process often takes anywhere from 6-12 months.
- Dramatic census fluctuations due to COVID-19; the need to add providers often arises suddenly across numerous contracts.
- Rural recruitment across several sites; it’s much harder to find a physician replacement in these locations than in a metropolitan area.
Throughout our partnership, we provided the following solutions:
- Presented 11 candidates for a startup program in Alabama, 10 of whom were accepted and credentialed within a 45-day timeframe.
- Delivered 30 total locum tenens physician submittals in one month.
- Filled 85% of the schedule for a hospitalist program in rural Tennessee.
The Interim Difference: Quality Assurance & QualityCare
At Interim, our Quality Assurance credentialing team works in close conjunction with our account executives to better serve our clients. Our credentialing process is meticulous and efficient, which makes all our clients’ lives easier. They have the confidence that when they receive a submittal from Interim, that physician will always be credentialed as quickly and painlessly as possible—without sacrificing quality.
We conduct rigorous screening and only staff top-tier providers, that’s our QualityCare Staffing model. Since Interim Physicians is a pioneer locum tenens agency established in 1979, we’ve had the time to develop an extensive hospitalist and emergency medicine provider network. We have a robust database of relationships exclusive to Interim; many of our physicians have worked with us for over a decade and even refer their colleagues to work with us. Since this group staffs ER and hospitalist contracts, our experience and reach in these specialties helps us staff vacancies much quicker than your average agency.
Our network also gives us an edge during rural recruitment. We work closely with the client to identify the positive aspects of each site, and our recruitment team does an excellent job selecting a physician who will seamlessly integrate with their team. We understand that our client relies on us to find coverage for facilities in areas that are desperately understaffed; Interim’s mission is to provide healthcare where none may otherwise exist. By cultivating this partnership with our client, we have successfully made that mission a reality.
“Interim is so easy to work with. They understand the needs of every single one of our programs and they always submit the best candidates. We know we can count on them. Everyone I have worked with through Interim has been spectacular and extremely responsive.”
More than an Agency, a Trusted Partnership
Thanks to the level of trust we’ve established, six years is just the beginning. As John Hoehne, Area Vice President at Interim Physicians notes, “We’ve gotten to a point with this group where they’re completely confident in our physician selection. They trust our stamp of approval and they accept our physicians without even interviewing them. This level of faith is a tribute to Interim’s screening and credentialing process. It makes everyone’s lives easier. It removes the burden from the client and the clinical director, and it really helps things move along quicker. It’s really rewarding for me to nurture a partnership to that level.”
Right now, we’re helping this group staff a mix of emergency medicine and hospitalist providers for 18 current openings. We’re honored to be their preferred staffing partner, and we look forward to many more years of successful physician placements.
