Choosing a career as a locum tenens clinician is both exciting and rewarding. Whether you’ve recently finished residency and are interested in exploring your medical career options, simply looking for a change, or are hoping to diversify your career – working as a locum tenens meets that goal.
How do you get started? While the process can be intricate and difficult, we’re here to guide you. It all starts with the locum tenens credentialing process.
As a general overview, credentialing is a process intended to review the history of a clinician’s career and qualifications. This includes:
Locum credentialing ensures that clinicians are up-to-date and in good standing with licensure and certifications that show clinical competency.
While credentialing is a requirement for all practicing clinicians, the nature of credentialing for locum tenens assignments can seem overwhelming. With the constant shift in work settings, finding the best approach to complete credentialing is essential.
Your locum staffing agency should work with you to streamline the process – outlining expectations and providing prompt facilitation of paperwork. Rely on the guidelines below so you can focus on providing the exceptional medical care you’re capable of.
With all the Locum Tenens Credentialing intricacies, it’s no wonder issues arise as a clinician works through this process. It’s not only difficult for a locum clinician to complete the paperwork, but it’s also challenging for the hiring healthcare facility.
The most common issues that arise in credentialing are:
Before we get into detail about how the credentialing process works, let’s discuss solutions to these three challenges.
The most important aspect of credentialing is paperwork, once you have the resume to back it up, of course. There’s a rigorous amount of paperwork required to be considered as a locum tenens candidate. Despite its significance, incomplete paperwork consistently plagues the locum credentialing process.
Paperwork should be filled out completely. This means double-and triple-checking your work. Procedure logs, references, and the CV must be perfectly up-to-date and complete, just to name a few examples.
Communication is one of the many reasons it’s vital to choose the right locum tenens agency to partner with. An all-too-common complaint from locum physicians going through the credentialing process is the inconsistent interaction with their staffing agency.
Locum tenens providers want to be certain they’re fulfilling every credentialing requirement, all while building an open line of communication with their agency. It’s common during the application process to either accidentally or purposefully leave a section blank. That’s where the staffing agency can step in to help, facilitating a productive and seamless locum hiring process.
If you are not receiving this support from your staffing agency, it’s time to partner elsewhere.
The credentialing process for a locum tenens clinician is intricate and not always time-efficient. This puts added stress on health care facilites that need a clinician position filled quickly. To make the most of your time, learn from your staffing agency and build and foster that relationship, all while being proactive with your paperwork to streamline the hiring process.
It’s a win-win for everyone involved when a potential locum can complete their credentialing, accept a job offer, and hit the ground running in their new assignment. A respected agency that maintains strong communication between the healthcare facility and the locum provider can bridge any inefficiencies with their expertise in credentialing.
There are several basic documents that every locum clinician is required to supply during credentialing. However, each state and facility has its own specific requirements that may vary from the list below. We highly recommend that you keep a file of your standard documents readily available and to focus on specific requirements with each new job opportunity.
To get your credentialing quickly underway, D&Y will need the following documents:
Do you have any tips we didn’t include that you have found helpful during the locum tenens credentialing process? We’d love to hear from you, contact us today!
This article was originally published on May 22, 2018 and was updated on November 28, 2022.