Storm-Displaced Doctors Strive to Stay in Practice

Locum tenens or temporary positions have been an option for many of these physicians, according to Phil Miller, a spokesman for Merritt, Hawkins & Associates, a physician-search firm based in Irving, Tex.

“We're working with physicians who don't have a site of service right now because their clinic's been damaged or under water, and they don't have any patients.” In the meantime, these physicians still need income, and the locum tenens option offers them financial backing until they return to their practices.

Staff Care Inc., the locum tenens agency of the Merritt, Hawkins group, has been placing physicians all over the country—in Texas, Oklahoma, the Carolinas, and Florida—Trey Davis, executive vice president for the agency, said in an interview. Hospitals and state licensing boards have facilitated this effort by making some exceptions to the normal guidelines to process state licensing and hospital privileges, he said.

“We had a physician who contacted us a couple of days after Katrina hit. He flew his small, private plane to a location in Oklahoma and did a face-to-face interview with a government facility. Within 4 days, we pushed his privileges through, and he was seeing patients in less than a week.”