Awakened Anesthetist

Revolutionizing CAA Careers: Exploring Locums Work with LocumTenens.com

• Season 4 • Episode 63

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Discover how Certified Anesthesiologist Assistants (CAAs) can revolutionize their careers with the growing number of locums opportunities. I sit down with Sabrina Strange from LocumTenens.com to break down exactly what "working locums" means for CAAs, and what you need to have in place before considering a locums position.

LocumTenens.com has recently updated their platform to make it more accessible than ever for CAAs eager to explore the locums market. For anyone considering a dynamic career path with unmatched flexibility, this episode is packed with valuable insights and encouragement to explore the burgeoning CAA locums market.

Interested in working locums? Receive 3 free resources to help you get started.

Check out CAA locums opportunities at LocumTenens.com



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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Awakened Anesthetist podcast, the first podcast to highlight the CAA experience. I'm your host, mary Jean, and I've been a certified anesthesiologist assistant for close to two decades. Throughout my journey and struggles I've searched for guidance that includes my unique perspective as a CAA. At one of my lowest points, I decided to turn my passion for storytelling and my belief that stick around and experience the power of being in a community filled with voices who sound like yours, sharing experiences you never believed possible. I know you will find yourself here at the Awakened Anesthetist podcast. Welcome in. Hello all my fellow CAAs, aa students and prospective students. I am your host, mary Jean, and welcome to Awakened Anesthetist.

Speaker 1:

Today I'm collaborating with locumtenantscom to bring you an in-depth look at CAAs working locums. Working locums is a term that you may hear thrown around a lot in the break room or between CRNAs or anesthesiologists. But is the locums market really favorable to CAAs and what exactly does working locums really mean for us here today to lend their expert advice is Sabrina Strange with locumtenantscom. So welcome, sabrina, to the Awakened Anesthetist. And here we do a little rapid fire to kind of get to know each other pretty quick. So I'm going to start shooting off some quick questions. If that works for you, sounds great to me, Mary Jean, awesome. First, tell us what your role is at locumtenantscom.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I am a recruiting production manager, so I both recruit on my own territory as well as manage some of our recruiters on the team.

Speaker 1:

And locumtenantscom places CAAs, crnas and physician anesthesiologists right, correct, awesome, okay, so darn it. I took your next rapid fire, which is can CAAs work locums?

Speaker 2:

Well, surprise, they can. Yes, we have recently broken into the CAA market of placing CAAs at locum assignments, so it's been something they've been able to do for a while, but we have recently kind of entered that market and we're going to get more specifics in place there to hear how locum tenants can help CAAs get a locum's placement.

Speaker 1:

But that's for later. So really high level. What does working locums mean for?

Speaker 2:

CAAs? Yeah, so it means taking part-time assignments at different hospitals, whether that's in your home state or another state that CAAs are allowed to practice in Cool, okay, and then a really lighthearted one.

Speaker 1:

What is your favorite coffee shop order?

Speaker 2:

I am a coffee addict and a Cortado is my go-to order.

Speaker 1:

Be more specific. I don't even know what a Cortado is.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so it's almost like a latte, but really, really small. So it's like the half a size of a normal latte, but more intense. Yeah, you can take a shot of it instead of having to sit there and drink it. You're supposed to drink it at the counter and walk away. Really, oh, you are serious. I like this, sabrina. Okay, I'm professionally Italian, trained in coffee, fun fact.

Speaker 1:

Okay, we're learning so much more about you now, sabrina, you mix well with the anesthesia crowd, I'm sure yes lots of coffee.

Speaker 2:

Don't talk to me before my first cup.

Speaker 1:

Okay, so let's get started by just really being specific about the CAA locums market and specifically where locumtenantscom comes in for us. When did you start placing CAAs in locums positions?

Speaker 2:

So we actually started a few years ago just here in our home state of Georgia, at a local hospital that reached out saying that they needed the help. However, about four months ago is when we really broke into the market and started placing CAAs more consistently.

Speaker 1:

In just the state of Georgia, or can you place us in any?

Speaker 2:

state. Any state that you guys can practice in we can help with. I will say we're breaking into that market so you might not have a job in every single state, but any state that you guys can practice in we can try and find you a job.

Speaker 1:

Gotcha and I have sort of a personal attachment to this next question because a couple of years ago I reached out to you guys, to locumintendentscom, and the person I talked to was like I've never heard of a CAA, I don't know what that is and, no, we don't place CAAs. So can you just give me a little background on why you guys decided to start placing CAAs? I assume it's not because just one hospital asked you, or maybe it is, I don't know.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, we definitely started to see a lot of facilities saying, hey, we aren't getting enough anesthesiologists or CRNAs to help keep our ORs open. Do you guys staff CAAs? And on the opposite side we had a lot of CAAs signing up saying, hey, we're looking for work and, as embarrassing as this is, we didn't even have a way for them to sign up correctly. I'm sure you felt that when you were on our job board.

Speaker 2:

So we really sat down and said this is something that facilities can really use and there's people out there that want to travel that don't have the option to, and that's why we decided to really do some research first and make sure we understood the difference in a CAA and a CRNA and educate our team before we started recruiting on those jobs and telling hospitals yes, we can help staff CAAs now.

Speaker 2:

And so if a CAA were to go on to the locumtenantscom website, would they be required to then say, hey, I'm a CAA looking for a job, and then, you know, different jobs would be available to us yes, so we have now updated everything so you can actually see which jobs are accepting CAAs and you can sign up on our job board as a CAA so that a recruiter will reach out to you about jobs that fit what you're looking for.

Speaker 1:

Awesome, great. That is exactly what I was looking for two years ago. So I'm glad that it's circled around and you guys are placing us. Because I knew of locumtenantscom, because it's what seems to be one of the biggest locums agencies in anesthesia Can you talk a little bit about locumtenantscom in the anesthesia marketplace and how long you've been there and what you guys have been doing?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so locumtenantscom started in 1995. So we've probably been in the anesthesia industry for about 20 plus years. We started out with just a psychiatry team, but anesthesia has become the largest team within locumtenantscom and we place more positions in any other department.

Speaker 1:

Hmm, okay. So because working locums is something that most CAAs will have heard of, but very few of us will have a direct contact with someone who works locums unless we know someone on social media who's sharing their locums journey, which is starting to happen now, can you give us a real insider look into what working locums means as a CAA and any differences that a CAA would experience as a locums worker as opposed to a CRNA or an anesthesiologist?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so as far as working locums, that's kind of what you'd want it to look like. Everyone does locums differently. So we have three personas that we kind of describe people as here at locumtittingscom. The first one someone casual, so someone just doing PRN work or random weeks, as they have them, somebody who does this as their full-time career. You can work locums every single week if you want to, just like you would a W-2. You can tell us 30 days out I'm taking a vacation and I won't be here for this week and we'll let our facility that we're working with know.

Speaker 2:

So, a little bit different than a straight W-2, but essentially working a W-2 is a 1099 contractor. And then somebody who does it for fun. So somebody maybe who's retired and said I have a few more years of me but I don't really want to work all the time, but I want to work half the time, whatever that might look like. And then, as far as CAAs how that would be different there is no difference. They can work locums just like a CRNA can. The only issue you'll come across is just that this is a new thing. There aren't quite as many jobs. So where you'll hear, crnas are bouncing around from one facility to the next. That's not quite an option yet. We're getting there and in some states like Georgia or we have a few jobs in Wisconsin right now you might be able to, but it's going to be probably a little bit more of a long-term assignment or somewhere where you are just working the random weeks that they open up, but that's the only place in your area that maybe would offer that.

Speaker 1:

Okay, and this is maybe jumping the gun a little bit, but since you mentioned certain states, what if people know hey, I want to work in Wisconsin, but I'm not familiar with the market there. Maybe they're coming from out of state, but they know CAAs work in Wisconsin, it's a CAA state and they're moving there. Would it be a good thing for them to get in contact with you and just say, hey, I'm interested, what's available? Like at what point in our job search, do you want people to contact locumtenumcom if they're interested?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I would suggest reaching out at any point Once you realize you're interested or maybe you're not even interested, but you have questions. That's what recruiters are there for. We're here to advocate and support at every step of the way. We can explain to you what the locums industry looks like right now in Wisconsin, what that licensing timeline looks like. We can help get you that license or just answer questions about what the pay looks like in Wisconsin right now. We do suggest technically, about three months before you're looking to work. I would say with today's world of credentialing, that might be closer to six or nine months, if I'm being honest. Oh really, the technical rule is you should be planning your schedule three months out, okay.

Speaker 1:

Wonderful, great. Thank you for that. Yeah, that three months does seem to be sort of what I hear, just like the schedule is that you need at least three months notice to get your license and your credentialing. Talk to me about the current job market as you see it, the trends. What makes a CAA in demand If they want to go locums? Do you need to have special skills and any growth potential there for us in this market?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. I think that for CAAs there's only growth potential right now as facilities are realizing left and right that they can't keep ORs open because there's such a shortage of anesthesiologists and CRNAs, they're all turning to the CAAs and saying we need your help, we've not had you in our hospital before, but we would like to start bringing you in. We've worked with a few facilities in Indiana that did not have CAAs before, and now we have 10 CAAs working and or getting ready to start working with them. Oh my, wow.

Speaker 2:

So the CAAs starting in Indiana or we're hopeful they'll get to start soon is definitely a great example of how fast the CAA market is expanding in certain states. We're also seeing a lot of examples of CAAs saying hey, I would really like to work in this specific state. Here's my availability, can you help me find a facility? And that is definitely something we offer and I think kind of helps make things specialized to what you're looking for as a CAA in your assignments. So that also, I think, really helps with the growth potential of where that market is going.

Speaker 1:

That is huge that someone could contact you and say, hey, I want to work in this hospital. That's never had CAAs before, but I know locumtenantscom has affiliations there because they place other providers. Can you help me break in and you guys would be able to help us do that? Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 2:

That's one of our favorite ways, and how we've gotten to where we are is asking people hey, what are you looking for? Turning around sending that information to our top clients and saying I have someone actively looking to work, here's what they're looking for. Does this fit what you want? Yes, perfect, here we go. And that helps open the doors for other CAAs, because sometimes a facility will tell us they don't need help until they see we really have somebody there ready to help and all of a sudden they could use help with five different openings. So that's one of our favorite ways to help find a new job, because we know it fits both parties perfectly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, Talk to me a little bit about why you have such a good reputation in, because I know that it's difficult to be talking with these hospital credentialers and there's so many layers, there's so much bureaucracy. Hospital credentialers and there's so many layers, there's so much bureaucracy. Where do you think that trust comes from that? If locumtenantscom says, hey, I have this CAA provider that wants to come to their hospital that they're like, okay, yeah we'll take a look.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I think that a huge reason facilities trust us the way they do is because we've been in the game for so long. We've built these relationships up over 20 years and we, I think, as a company, have really good morals. We really pride ourselves on always doing the right thing, treating others how we would like to be treated, and I think that goes a long way with our facilities, and they see that when they work with us. We're not afraid to admit when we make a mistake, make sure that it gets corrected. We do make mistakes, we're just humans here. Things do go wrong. A lot of the new small agencies that have entered the market want to act like everything's perfect all the time and that they didn't make a mistake. It's somebody else's. And I think because we're so honest with who we are and that we are humans, it makes a huge difference, but it really is time. I've had different people working on assignments for three, four, five years. That's not something every agency can say.

Speaker 1:

Sounds like integrity is really important to you guys. That's awesome. That's kind of incredible to hear, honestly, because I work in a new-ish CAA state and I have a little bit of a touchstone into how difficult that process is to get CAAs into a new hospital, so that's really exciting, wow. Okay, give me some pros and cons. It sounds like you'll be honest with me on some cons of working locums. Give me both sides of the coin.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, the pros are easy, right. You have freedom to schedule things how you want. You get to choose where you want to work. If you like the facility, you can stay there longer. If you don't, you always have a 30-day out to say, hey, this isn't meshing as well, I'd like to find somewhere else to go work. I mean, I could go on and on about the pros, down to picking an EMR system that you already know, so you don't have to learn a new one. Or maybe you want to learn a new case that you've never done before. Go to a facility that's willing to teach you those and you can add that to your list of things that you know how to handle. The cons are definitely that, with as much flexibility as you have, that can always be a double-sided coin. Just because you have the 30 day out, so does the facility.

Speaker 2:

Maybe they don't think things are meshing well on their end, and now you have to kind of find a new place to go pretty quickly, and it is really scary, I think, sometimes coming into a new facility. Some people think that freedom in the first week is always really hectic and you're in a hotel room alone, potentially at night, kind of like, oh, this was a crazy week and you have to you know, kind of get through that. I would say. Almost everyone that starts a new assignment the first week or so is like, oh, maybe this was a bad thing, maybe I should go back to where I was and by the end of the assignment, nine times out of 10, at least they're like I don't want to leave, I'm really happy here and I'm enjoying it. So that's the number one thing.

Speaker 2:

I think I hear from people that they don't love that and privileging in a new facility can be quite a pain. It's why it's nice to have an internal team that really helps people through that process. So something else that makes us stand out from other agencies that both the facilities we work with and CAAs enjoys that we're very customized in our teams. So our recruiters, their sole job is to recruit. That's what they're good at, it's what they know how to do. We have a full team for credentialing in-house and for privileging for the facilities, as well as teams for licensing. There's always someone that can answer your question. That's truly a specialist in it, instead of just somebody who maybe has done it one or two times. You won't see that at every agency, and it's something that I do think really sets us aside on both sides the hospitals we work with and the clinicians that we get to work with.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm, thank you for being so honest, because I do think it is just so valuable to hear the real real behind something as important as how you're going to direct your career, as important as how you're going to direct your career and those things really matter. Like to understand that there's some cons to everything, including working logums, which most people like to talk about, how amazing and how much money you make, and you know there's so many pros, but there's some real cons. So I appreciate your honesty there. I wanted to actually go back really quick. You're throwing out some terms that I'm just thinking that my audience may not exactly know, so I wanted to go back and just define what a recruiter is, a job board and a locums agency and it sounds like locumtenantscom is all three of those things, but can you just give some more words to what those are and define those a bit is all three of those things, but can you just give some more?

Speaker 2:

words to what those are and define those a bit Correct. Yes, we are all three of those things. So let me actually start the opposite. So a job board locumtenantscom is a job board and an agency in one. So the difference is that our job board can be posted on by other agencies, facilities directly, groups that are trying to bring in people, so it's not just us, and when you click on there you'll see it'll connect you with the correct recruiter that goes with the job or with the correct agency.

Speaker 2:

So locumtenantscom is the agency. So as a whole, you're going to have two main people you speak to at the agency and it's going to be a recruiter and a marketer. The recruiter is the person who's going to be two main people you speak to at the agency and it's going to be a recruiter and a marketer. The recruiter is the person who's going to be talking to you about the different jobs that we have and connecting you with the facility. You won't hear from the marketer quite as often, but they're actually the recruiting counterpart. So they are the people talking to the facilities, finding the jobs, finding out what they need, when they need, what the practice description looks like of that job. So you'll hear from them mainly if a recruiter is out of town and they need to jump in and help, but every once in a while you'll hear from them with an update about the assignment as well, or about an assignment you're interested in.

Speaker 1:

Okay, thank you. Yes, we're speaking right at an inflection point for CAAs and CAAs in the market, where we are expanding rapidly, and I just want to be sure everyone has the best information to move forward, to make you know, what I like to say is to live a life by design rather than default, and I just want you to speak on how a CAA would know if they're ready to work locums. Definitely, in our world it seems like, oh, you shouldn't work locums right out of school, you need some experience. But you had mentioned previously that, oh, I could possibly be placed in a hospital like, let's say, that does HARS, if they're willing to train me, that I could get some more heart experience, some more cardiac experience. Can you talk a little bit about what skills we need to have and how open we need to be on, what cases we're comfortable with or not?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. The answer is you can be ready at any point in time. So even new grads, direct out, can be placed in locum tenens positions. The caveat is not every facility is open to that. So some facilities say you have to have worked for two years, some say it doesn't matter. They all have this red tape of what they will and won't accept.

Speaker 2:

And if you can reach out to a recruiter, they'll tell you which positions you're eligible for, even if you are a new grad, we'll let you know which ones. Hey, they might take you, they might not. It's worth a shot. Or, hey, it's not even worth looking at because we know, based on what they've done in the past, that they won't be open to it. And then, as far as cases go, the more open you can be, the better.

Speaker 2:

Of course, more cases you know how to do will always help. However, don't ever let that deter you. If you see a job posting on a job board that says you have to know how to do PEDS, hearts, ob, all of these different cases, and you don't know how, but everything else about the, I would still reach out to that recruiter and say, hey, I'm interested, I don't do these cases and they'll let you know if it's a deal breaker or not. We often place clinicians at assignments where they only do three quarters of the cases and they just know which cases they can and can't be scheduled for. Not the end of the world, especially if a facility is looking for three, four or five different providers to fill something.

Speaker 1:

Not the end of the world five different providers to fill something, not the end of the world. Okay, good, good to know. Yeah, because I do think there's this stigma of locums. Sometimes when you're on the other end of a hospital that has full-time workers or employed workers and then contract locums workers, that it makes it a bit tricky if the locums can only do certain cases like sort of what you're describing. So I do think, yes, it's best to say I want to be able to do all the cases at a hospital. I don't want to say, hey, I'm a locums, I could never do this case, but being straightforward with it sounds like the recruiter would make sure you're placed in sort of a copacetic situation. Yes, absolutely Awesome.

Speaker 1:

Okay, I think I'm at my last question. I really would love to have you guys back if you're willing, because there's so many little details about tax filings and 1099 versus W-2 and health insurance and life insurance and malpractice and all these things that I think get grouped into this locums conversation and we've touched so much just on how to really expand what's possible to even think, oh, I might be able to work locums, but then there's all this other. So hopefully we can have you guys on again and have that discussion, but I think I want to end here on just what a CAA or a AA student who's in school listening to this and thinking, hey, that might be the path I wanna take. What is their next best?

Speaker 2:

step. Their next best step is to take a look at our job board, and I say that knowing our competitors post on there. They're gonna see other agencies, but they should really get a good idea of what jobs are out there and what matters most to them. Is it making the highest hourly rate possible, is it location somewhere fun in the mountains or a big city, or is it truly finding something that's a perfect fit as far as their cases, their preferred schedule and those items? And once they really think about that and know what they're looking for, reach out to a recruiter, because we are here to be a resource. I have been in the industry for over five years and my favorite thing to do still is talk to somebody brand new, answer their questions and help them find the perfect next step for them, whether that is locums or maybe it's not.

Speaker 1:

I'm excited for all of hopefully, the CAAs that are me calling locumtenscom and saying, hey, I heard you on Awaken Anesthet. Not, I'm excited for all of hopefully, the CAAs that are me calling locumtenscom and saying, hey, I heard you on Awaken Anesthetist and I'm just interested because it does sound like a really cool opportunity to start getting more facilities more aware of CAAs. So that's really exciting to me as a CAA. So thank you so much for taking us on and I'm really interested to see where this partnership goes and hopefully you help a lot of CAAs live the life that they want. So I appreciate you so much. Sabrina, thank you so much for being here on Awaken Anesthetist. Thank you for having me. I hope you enjoyed this episode and conversation about the locum tenants market with locumtenantscom. If you are interested in pursuing locums or just maybe looking at the locumtenantscom website just to see what's available, I'm going to have some links in the show notes so you can peruse in the privacy of your own home without anyone contacting you. And also, sabrina gave me a link that if you put in your information, in exchange you will get three downloadable resources that will help you make some early decisions in your locums journey. I did it myself. Basically, they ask you for your name and email address and then you can click on there whether you want to have a recruiter call you. That's definitely one of the things in this market that can be a bit overwhelming is that once you give your name out and your information, you do tend to receive a lot of recruiter calls. So I like that they give us the option in this link to choose whether recruiter reached out to us or not. I was just really impressed by Sabrina and this company and I'm very interested to see how locumtenenscom can help build the CAA profession in terms of getting us into new hospitals possibly new states or first hospitals in new states. That was all very exciting to me and just goes to show how much momentum the CAA profession has right now, at this particular moment, it's such a wonderful time to have found out about the profession. If you are a AA student or a prospective, I really encourage you to look back into some of these other episodes here at Awakened Anesthetist to make the most informed decision for yourself about this career. You can also follow me on Instagram at AwakendAnesthetist. I show behind the scenes and just give you some real life sort of feel on what it is to be a CAA.

Speaker 1:

You can also join us every month during season four of this podcast for an offering called Mindful Connections. It's a time for everyone in the CAA community, no matter where you are in your journey, to come and gather. It's free. We'll do a little bit of mindfulness practice in a really practical and sort of science-minded type, a friendly way, and then we'll discuss a theme that's pertinent to our health, our professional development and our personal development and just have a time to pause together in a way that really is unprecedented and something that we all yet deserve. So I hope to see you at any of the Mindful Connections offerings. You can find a link for those as well in the show notes, and I'm just really grateful that you all are here and listening.

Speaker 1:

We are coming to the wrap up of 2024. This podcast will be taking a bit of a holiday break at the end of December, but we do have several more episodes before then and definitely at least one more process episode. So I hope you all stay tuned and keep following along. You can chat me, email me, dm me, let me know what you thought about this episode the most important thing you could do for the podcast truly is just to directly share this episode right now with a friend, a CAA or another AA student in your life. Tell them why you loved this episode, why you think they'll love this episode, encourage them to take a listen and follow along. All right, let's talk soon, y'all.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Mary Jeanne Roberts, CAA

Host
Head Shot

Sabrina Strange

Guest