Since the pandemic, more and more radiologists are looking for remote opportunities. However, with the rise of remote work, many facilities face challenges filling the need for on-site coverage. We sat down with Jason Hiemer, a senior consultant at Hayes Locums, to talk about how locums can help facilities keep up with their on-site coverage while offering flexible and remote options for radiologists.
Remote work is meeting some radiology demands—but also creating new challenges.
Like many other specialties, the radiology field continues to face an ongoing increase in demand for imaging services and shortages of radiologists. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the use of teleradiology was limited to coverage during off-hours, like nighttime and weekends.
But the demand for remote options has significantly increased since the pandemic. 80% of workers want to work from home at least some of the time—and radiologists are no exception.
“It’s very challenging because a lot of radiologists want to work remotely, but most of our needs are on-site,” said Hiemer. “It’s getting harder to get providers to go on site.”
With the rise of remote work, there is a growing need for on-site radiology coverage.
In many ways, radiology is uniquely suited to remote work, because of how much of the work involves reading and interpreting images.
“The reason radiologists can work from home is that 90% of what they do is reading from a computer,” said Hiemer. “If they have access to their systems and have monitors to set up at home, they can do most of the work from there.”
However, as more radiologists transition to remote work, many facilities face growing challenges to staff essential on-site procedures.
“What hinders hospitals is that they have general procedures, like fluoroscopies, that they need radiologists to be on site to do. That’s why we will always have on-site needs.” Hiemer said.
As remote work becomes more prevalent in radiology, on-site locums radiologists become even more essential.
That’s where locums comes in: with locum tenens, you can attract and retain radiologists who wish to work from home, while also making sure you have adequate staff coverage for the procedures that need to be performed onsite.
The flexibility of locums isn’t just good for radiologists—it’s great for facilities, too.
It’s not hard to understand why many radiologists prefer remote work: it offers more flexibility, so they can find a better work-life balance. The same is true of locums: locum tenens allows providers to have more say over their schedule, so they can balance their work with the rest of their priorities.
That flexibility can benefit facilities, too. The growing number of radiologists who are gravitating to locum tenens means that your facility has a multitude of options when it comes to filling your gaps in on-site coverage.
Hayes Locums’ internal credentialing process ensures that we have a pool of potential onsite radiologists for facilities to choose from. That pool not only gives facilities more options to choose from; it also gives providers the flexibility to choose the schedule that works for them.
“If a hospital tells us that they need ongoing coverage from Monday to Friday, every week for three to six months, that schedule is actually more flexible for the doctors. We can get four radiologists credentialed, each of them doing a week a month.”
This creative approach to staffing gives hospitals access to the coverage they need while shielding locum radiologists from burnout and allowing them to work according to their preferred schedules.
You don’t have to choose between a provider’s preferences and a facility’s needs: with locums, you can have both.
As facilities work to find the right balance between remote diagnostic work and on-site procedure coverage, locum tenens providers play a crucial role in helping facilities keep their on-site coverage staffed.
If you’re ready to find the right radiology locums for you, we’re ready to help! Our team of specialty-specific consultants can partner with you to find the right providers to meet your facility’s needs.
