The story behind the Yukon Valley, Alaska series, part 2

WARNING! There may be spoilers in this tell-all. If you haven't read DR. ALASKA, you may want to wait until you do so before you check out my insider information!

This is PART 2!

​If you're interested in reading the book, here's where you can get DR. ALASKA: https://books2read.com/DrAlaska

4) Do locums doctors make a lot of money?

Yes and no. I would argue that you would make just as much money working at a rural facility than doing locums -- as a family doctor. For my FP/Ob services, the most I got paid was when I qualified to take an Ob/Gyn assignment. Holy cats, Ob/Gyns make a lot more than I do!

5) Why is it so expensive to get locums doctors, then?

Well, someone is getting rich off of locums, but it's generally not the hospital or the doctor. That's because the locums company charges over 2x what they pay the doctors. All for being 'the middle man' and brokering the locums coverage. 

The hospital bills all of the doctor's charges and if the doc is seeing lots of patients and doing lots of procedures, the hospital will usually recoup their financial investment. Also, the reason a hospital needs a locums in the first place, is because they cannot find coverage any other way. Their on-site docs might be ill or left, yet the hospital has to keep certain services available or be able to adequately care for a patient population.

My time as a locums doc is decently compensated. Consider that on my assignments, I'm working 24/7 for 8-14 days at a time, always ready and willing to come into the hospital, and doing lots of procedures and seeing clinic patients. AND, factor in the fact that I'm away from my family and home during this time (so the inconvenience factor). Come to think of it, I should probably negotiate a higher rate of pay!!!

But in seriousness, hospitals probably break even on locums. Docs make decent money. But the locums company very much rakes in the lion's share of profit for their work in the cogwheels of medical staffing.

6) Does Alaska pay better than other places?

In general, the more rural or hard-to-get-to or less desired environment, the higher the pay. There is really high locums pay for smack dab in the middle of nowhere in Kansas and Iowa, for example. No offense to those states but there's maybe not as much to see there as, say, Colorado or Oregon. I have a colleague who worked in Bethel, Alaska and Nome, Alaska. I don't know her pay rate, but she indicated that it was fun, exciting, and worth her while of uprooting her life for months to help out in those locations.

It also very much depends on supply/demand and location desirability. For example, I've never seen a locums ad for Telluride, Aspen, or Breckenridge (Frisco), CO. But I've seen locums ads for La Junta and Lamar, CO. (Just go look on a map. You'll see what I mean!)

(go to the next blog post for part 3!)