Julie Bryant, Atlanta Business Chronicle
A growing need for temporary health-care workers is being driven by heightened demand for medical specialists and the looming threat of higher and higher malpractice costs, according to a new staffing trend report.
In 1987, only about 4 percent of all doctors had ever worked on a temporary basis, but by 2000, some 15 percent had worked as a temp, or locum tenens physician, stated a recent report put out by StaffCare Inc., one of the country’s biggest physician staffing firms. Last year, Georgia landed on a top 10 list of states where the most money is spent on temporary docs. Georgia was absent from the list in 1999 and 2000, but in 2001 more than $50 million was spent in the state on locum tenens services.
There have been marked increases in the need for radiologists and psychiatrists in particular, said Mary Stone, an independent health-care risk management consultant in Atlanta and president of Locum Tenens Consulting Inc. But primary-care physicians fleeing especially litigious states are also a factor, said Stone, who helps negotiate malpractice insurance contracts for health-care workers and staffing firms. In Pennsylvania, for example, where massive jury awards in malpractice lawsuits have become legendary, doctors are moving out of the state and setting up shop in places where they are less likely to be hit with a financially crippling lawsuit, Stone said. They leave behind a need that is being filled by temporary physicians. The same thing could happen in Georgia, where malpractice claims have been trending upward, she added. Total spending on locum tenens services across the country reached $1.93 billion last year, compared with $1.25 billion in 2000 and $479 million in 1997.
New physicians, just out of their residency programs, account for the fastest-growing segment of locum tenens doctors, followed closely by physicians with more than 20 years of experience. The report also said temporary work gives new physicians the chance to “test drive” certain specialties before settling down into a chosen field. Funding On The Rise The Emory University School of Medicine increased its research funding by more than 10 percent last year, according to the latest data. The school attracted $122 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health in 2001, compared with $110.5 million in 2000. Several Emory departments attained top 10 status in their specialty for attracting NIH funding in the United States, including microbiology and immunology, which ranked third. The school’s departments of rehabilitation medicine, neurology and dermatology also were ranked in the top 10 in each specialty. The School of Medicine has 32 faculty members that have annual federal grants that total more than $1 million, 11 faculty members have annual federal grant totals of more than $2 million a year and one faculty member receives an annual federal grant worth more than $3.5 million. New Emory Chairman Emory University’s School of Medicine has named a new chairman of the school’s Department of Orthopedics. Dr. James R. Roberson, associate chairman of the department since 1990, has been appointed to the position after a nationwide search. Roberson, who joined the Emory faculty in 1982, has been chief of orthopedic surgery and associate medical director at Emory University Hospital. An orthopedic surgeon, Roberson specializes in the management of arthritic hips and knees and joint replacement. He also is a past president of the Atlanta Orthopedic Society. MRI Expansion North Atlanta Scan Associates, which owns a dozen imaging centers around the state, has opened a new location in Atlanta. The center houses the latest in MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) scanning equipment, making it one of only two centers in the state with the most advanced equipment now available in the industry, said Dr. Steve Frohwein, a cardiologist with Atlanta Cardiology Group who does MRI studies at the new imaging center. Emory University also has an MRI scanner with this level of advanced capability, he said. Saint Joseph’s Hospital of Atlanta also has advanced MRI equipment. The new center offers vascular, cardiac, brain and orthopedic MRI scanning services and is located south of Saint Joseph’s Hospital of Atlanta on Peachtree-Dunwoody Road. North Atlanta Scan Associates primarily has centers in the metro Atlanta area in Georgia and has one facility in Florida.