A first locum tenens assignment has two parts. The first is paperwork, and it happens before anyone offers you a shift. The second is walking into a clinic you've never worked in and being useful within the first hour. This guide covers both for clinicians taking a first locum shift in urgent care.
Before your first locum tenens assignment: the credential file
No clinic can put you on the schedule until it has confirmed who you are and what you're licensed to do. What's in the file depends on your role, but expect to be asked for most of these:
- A current license or certification for the state where the clinic is
- Proof of training and, where it applies, board or national certification
- DEA registration for that state, if you prescribe controlled substances
- Work history and professional references
- Malpractice coverage and claims history, where it applies to your role
- Immunization records and a TB test result
- Life support certifications the clinic requires
The license is the item with the longest lead time. If the clinic is in a state where you aren't licensed, that application has to be finished before the rest matters. The Nurse Licensure Compact gives RNs in compact states a multistate license, and physicians can use the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact to apply to several states at once, but NPs, PAs and CRNAs currently need a license from each state.
A file stays open until its slowest item comes back, and that's usually something a third party has to send: a reference, or a verification from a former employer. Tell your references to expect the request, and the wait gets shorter.
After the file clears, most clinics have their own short list: privacy and compliance training, EMR access, and sometimes an orientation session. Ask for EMR login credentials before the day of the shift. A login that fails on the morning of the shift means patients wait while someone finds the person who can reset it. For the clinic's side of this, see our post on what operators get wrong about locum orientation.
The terms to read before your first locum shift
Whether you're working through an agency or a marketplace, there are terms attached to the shift. Read them before you accept. For a first locum tenens assignment, five things are worth finding:
- The schedule. Exact dates, start and end times, and whether the clinic can change them after you've accepted.
- The rate and which hours it covers. Whether you're paid for scheduled hours or worked hours, and whether charting after close is paid.
- Cancellation. How much notice the clinic has to give, and whether you're paid anything if a shift is canceled late.
- Malpractice coverage. Who provides it, and whether the policy is occurrence or claims-made. If it's claims-made, who pays for tail coverage when the arrangement ends.
- Restrictions afterward. Some agency agreements limit your ability to work directly for a clinic they placed you with.
Our guide to locum tenens contract terms explains each of these clauses. If a term affects your license or your liability and you aren't sure what it means, a healthcare attorney is the right person to ask.
Travel and housing on a first locum assignment
How you get to the shift depends on which kind of locum work you've chosen.
In the traditional agency model, assignments are often away from home and last weeks or months. The agency typically arranges or reimburses travel and lodging, and the details are in the contract: what's booked for you, what's reimbursed, and what's capped. If you want to work in another part of the country and have someone else book it, an agency with a travel desk is the better fit.
Rediworks doesn't arrange or pay for travel or housing. It lists individual urgent care shifts, and clinicians pick up the ones they can get to. If a shift is far enough from home that you'd need a flight or a hotel, that cost is yours, so count it against the shift's pay before you apply.
For a first shift at a clinic within driving distance, the logistics are simpler. Drive the route once at the hour you'd be commuting, and find out where staff park. Our guide to locum tenens travel and housing covers longer trips.
What the first locum tenens shift looks like
On a first shift you're learning a new EMR, a new floor plan and a dozen names while seeing patients. The clinical work is familiar. The friction is in everything else, and most of it can be handled with questions asked early.
Arrive early. Give yourself time for parking, door access, and finding your workstation before the first patient is roomed.
Ask the operational questions in the first ten minutes. Where supplies are kept. How labs and imaging are ordered and where results come back. Who the clinic manager is and how to reach them. How the clinic handles a patient who needs a higher level of care, and where the nearest emergency department is.
Use the clinic's charting workflow. You have your own habits in the EMR, and a single shift isn't the time to rebuild templates. Chart the way the clinic charts, and close every chart before you leave.
Learn the names. Front desk staff, medical assistants and nurses know how the clinic runs. Introducing yourself at the start of the shift makes every later question easier to ask.
Leave a clean handoff. Pending results, callbacks and anything unfinished should be written down where the next clinician will find it.
A second shift at the same clinic is easier, because the logins work and you know where things are. That's also why clinics prefer to rebook clinicians who've already worked there. Building a relationship with a facility starts with the first shift going smoothly for the staff around you.
After the shift: hours and pay
When the shift ends, your hours have to be recorded and approved before you're paid. How that works varies: a timesheet signed by the clinic manager, hours entered in an agency portal, or hours submitted in a platform. Find out the process before the shift, and submit your hours the same day while the times are fresh.
Ask one more question before a first locum assignment: when pay is sent after hours are approved. The answer differs between agencies and platforms, and it matters if you're relying on the income for a bill due that month.
Start with one shift
A first locum tenens assignment doesn't have to be a long commitment. One shift at a clinic near you will show you how locum work fits your week. If you're still deciding whether it's for you, Locum Tenens 101 covers pay, licensing and taxes.
Rediworks is a self-service marketplace for urgent care shifts. You build a credential wallet once and reuse it at every Rediworks facility, and each listing shows the rate, location, shift length and facility before you apply. Sign up to see shifts.