A single locum tenens assignment can scatter its costs across several systems. A staffing coordinator books the airfare. Lodging goes on a corporate card. The agency invoices its fees separately. Ground transportation, meals and reimbursements arrive later on expense reports, and staff spend time coordinating and reconciling all of it.
When travel, expense, payments and financial reporting run in disconnected systems, finance teams may see individual transactions without a complete picture of what it costs to bring a clinician on-site. The same pattern shows up in continuing medical education, recruiting visits, research collaboration and multi-site clinical work.
Health systems under sustained margin pressure are already scrutinizing contract labor, purchased services and supply costs. Clinician travel belongs in that conversation.
This tip sheet outlines six hidden costs that fragmented travel and expense processes create for health systems. It also explains what changes when booking, payments, expense, policy and reporting are connected, from the initial travel need through final reconciliation.
Learnings include:
- How to see the full cost of a locum assignment and compare extending a contract with recruiting a permanent clinician
- Why compliance teams end up reconstructing approval histories from email, paper, cards and booking platforms.
- How travel policies that can’t flex for urgent assignments or last-minute facility changes drive off-program bookings and weaken negotiated rates
- Eight questions to ask when evaluating travel and expense technology for healthcare