How to Reduce Physician Burnout with Strategic Locum Tenens Staffing

7/27/25, 10:45 AM

Reduce physician burnout through smart locum tenens staffing strategies. Discover how temporary roles can support wellness, flexibility, and work-life balance.

In recent years, physician burnout has been categorized as one of the major healthcare problems. Long hours, paperwork, understaffing, and the emotional toll of patient care are pushing many doctors to the edge of their limits. More than 53% of physicians are burned out, according to a 2024 Medscape survey — a rate that has gone up since the pandemic.

Burnout takes a toll not just on the physician but also on patient care, a hospital’s effectiveness, and staff turnover, which compounds the problem. Today, organizations are finally seeking solutions to combat physician burnout, and one such solution that has been tried and tested is strategic locum tenens staffing.

Locum tenens — Latin for “to hold the place” — are doctors or medical professionals hired to cover hospital, clinic, or private practice staffing shortages temporarily. When used thoughtfully, locum tenens staffing isn’t just about filling gaps in the schedule — it’s a protective measure against burnout, a way to restore balance to practitioners’ lives, and ultimately an enhancement of healthcare delivery.

In this post, we’ll examine how locum tenens staffing benefits can help healthcare facilities combat physician burnout, retain providers, and foster a healthier work environment.

Understanding Physician Burnout

Before we enter that solutions space, though, we thought it’d be helpful to dissect the reasons that drive physician burnout. Burnout isn’t just “feeling overworked”—it’s a very real and multifaceted condition defined by:

· Emotional exhaustion
· Depersonalization (feeling detached from patients)
· Reduced sense of personal accomplishment

Common triggers include:

· Excessive workload and long hours
· Lack of autonomy
· EHR (Electronic Health Record) documentation load
· Staff shortages and on-call pressures
· Work-life imbalance

If unaddressed, burnout can result in more medical errors, young doctors leaving the field, and even mental health crises. This creates a pressing need for actionable solutions to address healthcare burnout, which healthcare leaders must address as a priority.

How Locum Tenens Staffing Helps Prevent Burnout

1. Provides Immediate Relief for Overworked Staff: “Fast ways to reduce burnout” probably includes not having over-extended physicians carry so much of the daily work burden. Is Locum Tenens Right for the Role? Locum tenens can fill the gap in the following ways:

· Cover shifts during high-demand seasons
· Take night or weekend call rotations
· Substitute coverage for physicians on vacations, maternity leaves, or sabbaticals
· Relieve staff after sudden departures

This immediate support has allowed permanent staff to take a break, recharge their batteries, and return to work refreshed, rather than what might have been a journey into burnout.

2. Restores Work-Life Balance: Chronic dissonance between professional and personal life contributes to physician burnout. When they are repeatedly asked, through no fault of their own, to miss family events, holidays, or simply days off because the hospital is short-staffed, the stress rapidly accumulates.

Agency staffing gives healthcare systems the power to staff and schedule their way, so permanent providers can:

· Take intentional time off without guilt
· Cut hours for them during particularly stressful life periods
· Don’t get called up on short notice

And when doctors feel like their employer is investing in their health, job satisfaction and retention are higher.

3. Reduces the Administrative Burden: Burnout isn’t just about patient care — it’s about non-clinical tasks that rob time and energy from doctors. Many locum tenens are also clinical-only, dedicating themselves solely to patient care.

· This opens up hospitals to reassign work:
· Leverage locums for direct patient interaction
· Let tenured faculty concentrate on leadership, teaching, or research.
· Schedule time to chart and do administrative tasks.

This division of labor increases efficiency and enables doctors to work at the top of their license, rather than in the middle of it, with regulatory paperwork.

4. Supports Rural and Underserved Areas: Shortages of physicians are particularly severe for rural hospitals and critical access centers. Much of the time, such doctors work 24/7 on call and experience high levels of burnout.

Rural facilities should leverage locum staffing plans. They can:

· Cycle temporary doctors through to minimize the constant on-call demands
· Avoid isolation by importing new doctors
· Allow local doctors to go to conferences or have a sabbatical period

This enhances care continuity in underserved areas while safeguarding the mental health of local providers.

5. Brings in Specialized Skills: In other words, it stems from doctors being asked to work beyond their comfort and skill level due to shortages of specialists.

By using locum tenens staffing, healthcare organizations can:

· Employ specialist providers for temporary cover.
· Assist permanent staff with consults or cases
· Don’t make generalists do things that stress them or their liability.

This helps protect the quality of care and also avoids inundating the provider.

Implementing a Strategic Locum Tenens Program

As with so many things, to get the best from locum staffing, healthcare leaders need to stop being reactive and learn to be more proactive on a strategic level. Here’s how:

1. Conduct Regular Workforce Assessments

Know your employees’ workload, identify their pain points, and determine when they are most heavily burdened. Use this to plan locum cover before one of the crises arises.

2. Normalize the Use of Locums

Most health systems view locum tenens recruitment as a measure of last resort. Instead, staff and schedule regularly for physician wellness.

3. Partner with Trusted Locum Agencies

Seek to work with good LT firms that empower you with your wants, quickly credential you, and provide solid personnel.

4. Create a Physician-Centered Scheduling System

Provide your team with time to request locum support before they need it, rather than responding to breakdowns caused by burnout.

The Long-Term Benefits of Locum Staffing

When leveraged properly, locum tenens physicians are more than just space-fillers — they’re essential partners in creating a resilient healthcare system. The long-term benefits include:

· Lower physician turnover rates
· An increase in patient satisfaction from the mind-refreshed care providers.
· Improved morale and team cohesion
· Improved recruitment levels through improved work-life balance.

Conclusion

Burnout in healthcare is not a fleeting trend that will give way to a new one — it’s a persistent problem that requires thoughtful solutions. As more companies seek solutions to healthcare burnout, agency locum tenens staffing is a strategic and time-tested approach to alleviate frustration, promote work-life balance, and enhance overall patient care.

Healthcare systems can protect their most important asset – their people – by hiring temporary physicians.