Your locum tenens placements each carry a registration question nobody answers before day one.
Locum tenens staffing is the practice of placing clinicians temporarily into a facility to cover a vacancy or an absence. It is a staffing business sitting on top of a licensing and registration regime: the clinician needs state licensure, the facility needs them credentialed and privileged, and where controlled substances are involved a registration question arises for each location rather than for the person alone.
Neurobird Locum Tenens Staffing in short
- Check licensure, credentialing and registration against the specific facility before confirming a placement.
- Track expiry dates against assignment dates, since a mid assignment lapse strands both parties.
- Record which registrations cover which locations, because that is how the rules are written.
- 30,000 One estimate cited by DEA put the number of locum tenens practitioners in the United States above 30,000. DEA rulemaking record
- 100 agencies The same estimate put the number of locum tenens agencies operating nationally at more than 100. DEA rulemaking record
- Pricing runs 160 to 840 US dollars per month across 3 tiers. Early access is free.
What locum tenens agencies and hospitals actually deal with
Why it stays broken
Staffing systems model a person and a shift. The compliance model is different: licensure attaches to the clinician, privileges attach to the facility, and controlled substance registration is tied to a place of business rather than travelling with the practitioner. A placement therefore has to satisfy three separate records at once, and none of them lives in the scheduling tool.
30,000 locum tenens practitioners were estimated to be working in the United States when the registration question was examined.
Also, a physician who has left the group and for whom the group has engaged a locum tenens physician as a temporary replacement may bill for the temporary physician for up to 60 days.
Neurobird Locum Tenens Staffing Compliance Platform
Hold licences, credentials and registrations against the placement they authorise, so the gap is visible before the assignment starts rather than after.
- 1Check licensure, credentialing and registration against the specific facility before confirming a placement.
- 2Track expiry dates against assignment dates, since a mid assignment lapse strands both parties.
- 3Record which registrations cover which locations, because that is how the rules are written.
- 4Keep the credentialing file with the placement so a facility audit is answered from records.
What changes with Neurobird Locum Tenens Staffing?
The same work, read left to right: how it runs today, and how it runs once the record is in one place.
| Today | With Neurobird Locum Tenens Staffing |
|---|---|
| A placement is confirmed before anyone checks whether the clinician's registration covers that location | Check licensure, credentialing and registration against the specific facility before confirming a placement. |
| Credentialing runs on the facility's timetable and the agency finds out it is incomplete on the start date | Track expiry dates against assignment dates, since a mid assignment lapse strands both parties. |
| Licences and registrations expire mid assignment and nobody is tracking them against the placement calendar | Record which registrations cover which locations, because that is how the rules are written. |
Who is this for?
Three ways an available clinician is not actually placeable.
Registration follows the place
Controlled substance registration is obtained for a principal place of business or professional practice, which means a clinician moving between facilities raises a question that a personal licence does not answer. Establishing that before the assignment is cheaper than after.
Credentialing against the start date
Clinical staffing is examined during federal site visits, including how a health centre assures its clinicians are appropriately licensed and credentialed. A locum who starts before the file is complete is a finding waiting to happen.
The renewal mid assignment
Registrations run for fixed periods rather than for the length of a placement. A long assignment can cross a renewal, and the agency usually discovers that only when something is refused.
See it work
A short walk through matching a clinician to a placement.
| Requirement | Status | Next due | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Clinician available | current | in 42d | |
| Credentials cleared | due soon | in 9d | |
| Placement confirmed | current | in 120d | |
| Clinician available | overdue | 3d late | |
| Credentials cleared | current | in 64d |
Tick a requirement to file evidence against it.
What the numbers say about locum tenens staffing
The market is large and the registration rules are specific about place rather than person. That combination is where placements fail.
One estimate cited by DEA put the number of locum tenens practitioners in the United States above 30,000.
DEA rulemaking recordThe same estimate put the number of locum tenens agencies operating nationally at more than 100.
DEA rulemaking recordThe registration period for persons who dispense controlled substances is set by regulation at three years.
DEA rulemaking recordAuthority to issue controlled substance registrations is delegated to the DEA Administrator by regulation.
DEA rulemaking recordA 2006 final rule specified that only intrastate locations fall within the exception to separate registration.
DEA rulemaking recordHow does Neurobird Locum Tenens Staffing work?
Match
A clinician is matched to a placement only when licence, credential and registration status actually cover that facility and those dates.
Start
Credentialing progress is tracked against the start date, so an incomplete file is visible while there is still time to complete it.
Maintain
Expiries are watched across the assignment rather than at onboarding, because assignments routinely outlast a renewal cycle.
Locum tenens staffing software questions, answered
Key terms
- What is locum tenens staffing?
- It is the placement of clinicians into temporary assignments covering a vacancy, a leave or a seasonal gap. Agencies recruit and place the clinicians, facilities retain them, and state regulatory authorities govern the licensure that makes the work lawful. The staffing part is logistics. The part that decides whether an assignment can actually begin is whether licensure, credentialing and any required registration are all in place for that clinician at that facility.
How big is the locum tenens market?
Larger than most people assume. In examining how registration rules apply to temporary practitioners, DEA cited an estimate of over 100 locum tenens agencies operating in the United States and more than 30,000 locum tenens practitioners. The specialities most in demand were hospital based, including anaesthesiology, psychiatry, radiology, paediatrics and surgery.
Does a clinician's registration travel with them?
Not straightforwardly, and this is the crux of the issue. Registration to dispense controlled substances is obtained in relation to a principal place of business or professional practice, and a later final rule specified that only intrastate locations fall within the exception to obtaining a separate registration. For a clinician moving between facilities, and particularly across state lines, the question has to be answered per placement rather than once per person.
What do federal site visits examine?
Clinical staffing is one of the areas reviewed, including how an organisation assures that its clinicians hold the licences and credentials their roles require. Because locum clinicians are placed quickly and often start under time pressure, they are exactly where an otherwise sound credentialing process tends to show gaps.
Is the software available now?
No. It is in development and open for early access. We are building the placement level compliance record with agencies that place across state lines.
Why we are building this
Locum staffing looks like a scheduling business and behaves like a licensing one.
A clinician can be available, willing and excellent, and still not be placeable at a particular facility on a particular date, because registration attaches to a place rather than to a person and credentialing runs on the facility's clock rather than the agency's.
So we are building the check into the placement itself. The Neurobird Team is starting with agencies that place across state lines, since that is where the question is hardest and most often skipped.
Where the requirement comes from
Primary sources, straight from the regulators.
- DEA, registration requirements for practitioners operating in a locum tenens capacity How controlled substance registration applies to temporary practitioners.
- HRSA, site visit protocol, clinical staffing What a federal site visit examines about licensure and credentialing.
- HRSA, health center compliance manual chapter 5 Clinical staffing requirements for federally supported health centres.
- 42 CFR 411.357, exceptions to the physician referral prohibition Arrangements including locum coverage that must fit a defined exception.
- CMS, claims processing transmittal Billing instructions relevant to substitute physician arrangements.
How much does Neurobird Locum Tenens Staffing cost?
Early access pricing, held for the first 12 months for agencies that help shape the build.
- Clinician credential records
- Placement checks
- Expiry warnings
Get free early access
We want agency compliance leads who have had a clinician stopped on their first morning.
Straight answer on where this is: The software is unfinished. Credential records, placement checks and expiry warnings work. There is no primary source verification integration and facility connectors are limited.
Prefer email? Write to office@neurobird.com and a person will reply. No autoresponder.