I. Company Fast Facts
II. Corporate Background
III. Industry Background
V. Medical Specialties
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Company Fast Facts
- VISTA provides hospitals, medical practices and government healthcare facilities with highly qualified physicians to meet short- and long-term temporary staffing needs and permanent openings.
- VISTA offers flexible, customized solutions to healthcare facilities throughout the United States as well as in Australia and New Zealand.
- VISTA provides rewarding, flexible career options for physicians in every stage of their professional lives, from just out of training to semi-retirement.
- In 2007, VISTA was acquired by On Assignment, Inc., and now functions as the physician staffing division of this large, diversified healthcare and scientific staffing company.
- VISTA is well known for integrity and ethical business practices that ensure long-term relationships with clients and physicians.
- VISTA works with a pool of more than 1,300 physicians from almost every medical specialty.
- The physicians who work through VISTA are carefully screened and covered by professional liability insurance.
- As a founding member of the National Association of Locum Tenens Organizations (NALTO), VISTA is a leader in establishing and maintaining strict industry standards.
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Corporate Background
Founded in 1990, VISTA Staffing Solutions helps hospitals, medical practices, and government agencies optimize their medical staffing, ensure quality and continuity of care for patients, and maintain financial stability. A leading provider of temporary physician, or locum tenens, staffing and permanent physician search services, VISTA is the only agency that offers both domestic and international work opportunities for physicians.Locum Tenens Services Meet Temporary Physician Staffing Needs
In Latin, "locum tenens" means "one holding a place.” VISTA provides healthcare organizations with highly qualified, locum tenens physicians to meet short- or long-term temporary staffing needs during seasonal increases in demand, vacations or leave of absences, and/or while the organization recruits a permanent physician.Through its US locum tenens services, VISTA offers fast, flexible, revenue-generating physician staffing solutions for organizations ranging from large urban hospitals to small practice groups and rural areas that may not be able to attract full-time physicians. When contracting with VISTA, organizations pay a daily or weekly fee for locum tenens services, as well as the physician’s housing, travel, and local transportation costs. Healthcare organizations in Australia and New Zealand generally employ the physicians placed by VISTA, and provide compensation and benefits package and assistance with housing, travel, and transportation.
Locum tenens physicians working through VISTA are experienced caregivers who represent a comprehensive range of specialties and provide excellent medical care. VISTA carefully reviews the credentials of the physicians it recruits, which makes the privileging process easier, and provides them with professional liability (malpractice) insurance coverage.
Physician Search and Consulting Services Enhance Permanent Recruiting Processes
Due to the growing physician shortage, recruiting has become the number one priority for healthcare organizations in the US and Down Under. US hospitals and group practices are increasingly competing for qualified physicians who are essential to retaining market share, maintaining important referral relationships, and generating revenue. Healthcare organizations in Australia and New Zealand face similar challenges recruiting doctors to meet their obligations to provide care.VISTA is taking a distinctly different approach to permanent physician recruitment by looking at the problem from a healthcare organization’s perspective. The company partners with healthcare organizations to ensure that their permanent physician recruitment programs are operating at maximum effectiveness and attracting high-quality caregivers.
Through its physician search and consulting division, VISTA offers a wide-range of search services, customized consulting, and value-added tools that enhance the recruiting process. The company also helps hospitals and physician practices evaluate their in-house recruiting teams, assess marketing and sourcing tools, and develop efficient recruiting programs. Fees for VISTA physician search and consulting services are based on shared risk, successful placements, and physician retention.
VISTA Provides Physicians with Rewarding Career Opportunities
VISTA offers rewarding locum tenens and permanent opportunities that allow its physician partners to control their personal and professional time and meet their career goals. The company minimizes risk and exposure by ensuring that each physician’s talents are appropriately matched with the healthcare organization’s staffing requirements. For US assignments, VISTA provides detailed information about each potential assignment, assists with securing new state licenses, and coordinates logistical details. For international assignments, VISTA helps with visa and registration (licensure), locates great practices in need of a doctor’s services, coordinates interviews and introductions, and takes care of countless details. The hiring healthcare organization generally offers the doctor assistance with travel, housing, and transportation.Headquartered in Salt Lake City with additional offices in Atlanta, Georgia, Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and Cary, North Carolina, VISTA employs more than 160 people. The company has shown consistent profitability since its second year of operation, and for the past 17 years has enjoyed a compound annual growth rate of more than 25 percent.
Three veterans of the physician staffing industry founded VISTA in 1990—Mark S. Brouse, president; Katie Abby, executive vice president; and Clarke Shaw, senior vice president. The company was acquired by On Assignment in January 2007, and operates as the physician staffing division for this large, diversified staffing company. VISTA Staffing Solutions is a founding member of the National Organization of Locum Tenens Organizations (NALTO), an organization that develops and enforces standards for credentialing, ethics, and business practices within the locum tenens industry. Katie Abby is immediate past president of this organization.
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Industry Background
Doctors Who Work Part Time
The temporary physician staffing, or locum tenens, industry was founded in 1979 by Therus Kolff, M.D., MPH, former chairman of the board of VISTA. Since that time, locum tenens practice has grown rapidly in the United States and abroad. In 2004, an estimated 28,000 physicians took temporary medical assignments and the locum tenens staffing industry had revenues estimated at $2 billion.As a lifestyle choice, locum tenens can enhance physicians' lives, professionally and personally, by providing attractive options at all stages of their professional careers:
- Post-residency: Physicians just out of training enjoy some freedom and flexibility before they settle into permanent positions.
- Mid-career: Physicians can make an informed transition from one job to another.
- Semi-retirement: Physicians get to slow down and practice less than full-time without losing their clinical skills and credentials.
Most physicians who choose to take temporary assignments do so to have greater flexibility and control, which leads to an improved quality of life. Other factors contributing to the number of physicians choosing temporary assignments include skyrocketing malpractice premiums and increasing bureaucracy in health care.
Today, locum tenens physicians can practice in diverse medical facilities throughout the United States, or in international assignments in select countries. They can choose to work for specific periods of time, from a few weeks to more than a year. .
Organizations That Hire Physicians Part Time
Medical facilities, government agencies, and community-based practices ranging from small family practices to large multispecialty groups, are increasingly turning to locum tenens physicians to ensure the quality and continuity of patient care during staffing shortages. These screened, insured physicians can help medical facilities meet temporary staffing needs while they recruit, during seasonal increases in demand, and while physicians are on vacation or leave. Temporary physician staffing is an excellent solution for rural areas that may not be able to attract full-time doctors.Locum tenens physicians represent a comprehensive range of medical specialties that can help facilities temporarily reduce physician shortages as special needs arise, or while recruiting a permanent physician in a short-supply specialty.
Medical facilities can keep costs down by using temporary physician staffing to accommodate fluctuations in demand and special needs—it is less expensive than adding full-time staff. They can maintain their financial stability with fast, flexible, revenue-generating temporary staffing. Because it offers a number of benefits, using locum tenens physicians should be part of every health care facility's strategic staffing plan.
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Medical Specialties
VISTA provides practice opportunities and locum tenens coverage in a broad range of medical specialties, including the following:- Ambulatory care (Urgent Care)
- Anesthesiology /CRNA
- Critical care
- Dermatology
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Emergency medicine
- Pediatric emergency medicine
- Family practice
- Hospitalists
- Internal medicine
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Internal medicine subspecialties
- Allergy
- Cardiology
- Gastroenterology
- Hematology
- Infectious Disease
- Nephrology
- Pulmonology
- Rheumatology
- Maternal Fetal
- Neurology
- Pediatric neurology
- Neonatology
- Obstetrics and gynecology
- Occupational medicine
- Oncology
- Hematology/Oncology
- Medical oncology
- Radiation Oncology
- Otolaryngology
- Pediatrics
- Pediatric critical care
- Pediatric hospitalists
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation
- Primary care
- Psychiatry
- Child and adolescent psychiatry
- Radiology
- Angiography
- Magnetic resonance imaging
- Surgery
- Cardiothoracic
- Cardiovascular
- General
- Neurosurgery
- Ophthalmic
- Orthopedic
- Pediatric general surgery
- Pediatric neurosurgery
- Surgical critical care
- Thoracic
- Trauma
- Urologic
- Vascular
- Urology
COMPANY CONTACT
Carolyn Rose
Vice President, Marketing and StrategyVISTA Staffing Solutions
800-366-1884
crose@vistastaff.com
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