Staffing specialty coverage used to be a matter of hiring the right physician. But today, budget constraints and specialist shortages have made recruiting the “right” provider anything but straightforward. For many hospitals, locums have become the default answer to coverage gaps. And in the right scenarios—like procedural support or temporary absences—locums are indispensable.
But what happens when a temporary fix becomes the only strategy?
Today, 85% of hospitals use locums—and increasingly, they’re relying on them for ongoing coverage, not just short-term needs. This shift comes with tradeoffs: locum costs can be twice that of a permanent hire, and repeated onboarding disrupts continuity and stretches teams thin. More importantly, over-reliance on locums keeps hospitals in a reactive cycle—plugging holes instead of building durable, cost-effective solutions.
A Smarter Path to Sustainable Coverage
Instead of staying locked in reactive, high-cost models, hospitals can take a more strategic path—one built for long-term sustainability. It starts with two key shifts:
- Staffing fractionally with remote specialists when volumes don’t support full-time hires
- Consolidating provider panels across locations to get more operational leverage from the same workforce
Low Volume, High Need: Rethinking Staffing at the Margins
The first lever—fractional virtual coverage—gives hospitals a flexible way to staff specialties when patient volume doesn’t justify a full-time hire. Instead of recruiting for an FTE, hospitals can staff on a per-consult basis and scale with demand, without committing to full-time salaries or relocating specialists.
This model dramatically reduces overhead. Hospitals only pay for what they need—whether that’s weekend coverage, a few shifts a month, or daily consults. And, services previously out of reach due to cost or recruitment barriers can now be launched with minimal investment.
We’ve seen this play out across hospitals we support. One community hospital added inpatient infectious disease and heme/onc consults virtually with fractional coverage. The result? 81% of consult patients avoided a transfer, and the hospital now sees a 14x ROI from the program.
Scaling Talent Across Sites
The second lever, consolidating provider panels across locations, unlocks untapped value within a health system’s existing workforce and enables smarter utilization of in-house and remote expertise across multiple facilities.
Instead of staffing each site independently, health systems can centralize consultative services—pooling specialist resources and distributing coverage across the network virtually. This hub-and-spoke approach ensures high-value specialists are optimally utilized within a health system, improves consistency across locations, and reduces redundant hiring.
Virtual coverage also helps hospitals make better use of procedural specialists. When supported by virtual providers for consults or follow-ups, proceduralists spend more time on procedures and less on paperwork. For example, offloading just six hours of non-procedural work per week from a GI specialist can free up enough time to generate over $300,000 in procedural revenue annually.
Optimizing specialists via virtual hub-and-spoke models allows health systems to load-balance consult volume, prevent unnecessary internal transfers, and deliver consistent specialty care across all sites—including those that historically lacked access. Smaller facilities become more self-sufficient and clinically capable, reducing strain on referral centers and elevating the value of every site in the network.
Why the Right Technology Matters
Whether a health system pursues fractional coverage, multi-site panel sharing, or both, success hinges on more than the care model itself. Delivering fast, consistent, and scalable remote services requires technology that removes friction, supports clinical quality, and keeps teams in sync—all to ensure virtual consults move as quickly and smoothly as in-person care.
At AmplifyMD, that starts with intelligent assignment and distribution. Seamless EHR integrations further streamline the process, surfacing key patient data for remote providers while keeping bedside teams in their existing workflows.
To further reduce friction, AI and automation streamline communication, pre-charting, and documentation. And with real-time dashboards, program leaders gain actionable visibility across sites, programs, and providers, enabling them to monitor activity, identify gaps, and drive continuous improvement.
The result? Faster consults, better collaboration, and 2x greater provider efficiency.
The Path Forward
Ultimately, the question isn’t whether virtual care should replace locums—it’s how hospitals can evolve toward smarter, more sustainable coverage models that reflect today’s workforce realities and tomorrow’s clinical demands.
It’s time to move beyond short-term fixes. Let’s build something that lasts. For a deeper look at the data, case studies, and ROI behind this shift, download our white paper: Beyond Locum Tenens: Solving Coverage Issues with Virtual Specialists and Fractional Support.
