Cost Savings & ROI

The $7.7 Billion Question: Why Hospitals Can't Afford to Ignore Internal Float Pools Anymore

Locum tenens spend has nearly doubled since 2019 and is on track to hit $14.6B by 2030, but hospitals could redirect roughly $7.7B of that by scaling internal float pools instead of renting from outside agencies. Beyond the savings, owned float pools give hospitals more control over staffing, better continuity of care, and physicians who are culturally aligned rather than transient contractors. The window to build this advantage is now, before the rest of the market catches on.

The Most Expensive Problem in Healthcare That Nobody Is Trying to Fix

Most health systems are extraordinarily good at managing their locum spend. Almost none are trying to reduce it. At $20M in annual locum spend, 35–50% is going straight to agency markup — not physician compensation, not patient care. That's not a cost of doing business. That's a recoverable asset, and the health systems that have decided to recover it are building a structural cost advantage that will compound for years.

Placement Fees Are a Tax on Poor Planning

A 20 to 25 percent placement fee on a physician's first-year compensation is not a recruiting cost. It is a penalty for not having built a pipeline six months earlier. Every dollar paid to an outside search firm is a direct reflection of how far in advance a hospital failed to plan.

Why Your Recruitment Budget Is Structured Backwards

Most health systems spend the majority of their physician recruitment dollars on the most expensive, least effective part of the problem. Here is why — and what a better model looks like.

The Internal Float Pool: Why the Math Rarely Works Out the Way You Think

The $1M Leak: A CFO's Guide to the True Cost of Physician Vacancies