Built by a Cardiothoracic Surgeon
Practice Medicine
On Your Terms
Medical training doesn't teach you how the locum tenens system actually works. Specialty boards don't test on it. Locum Tenens Academy is the operational map — built from 30 years of surgical experience and years of independent practice.
"The clinician who understands what the system was built to do — and what it was not built to do — navigates it more effectively than the clinician who treats it as inexplicable or unfair."
Roughly three-quarters of American physicians now work as employees of a hospital, health system, or corporate organization. They do not set their fees. They cannot choose their practice partners. Most cannot choose their own CME vendors. Locum Tenens Academy exists to give you the knowledge to operate differently — and the framework to do it well.
Why LTA Exists
What Medical School
Never Taught You
Physicians and APPs who work as locum tenens typically learn the industry by paying tuition to it — through misattributed frustration, misunderstood credentialing delays, and rate negotiations that fail because no one ever explained how the pipeline actually works. This is the course that should have existed from the start.
Business Entity Setup
Step-by-step guidance to establish your PLLC or PC — the legal and financial structure that separates you from an employee and activates every tax and liability advantage available to independent physicians.
Contract Mastery
Learn to read every clause — malpractice limits, tail coverage obligations, cancellation terms, non-competes, presentation rights — with sample language you can take directly into negotiations with agencies or hospitals.
Rate Intelligence
Your locum rate is a business-to-business price that must cover malpractice, health insurance, retirement, both halves of self-employment tax, and unbillable administrative time. We show you how to build that number from the ground up.
Malpractice Protection
Occurrence vs. claims-made. Tail coverage obligations. Certificate of Insurance requirements. A-rated carriers. Most physicians confirm the pay rate and accept whatever malpractice language the agency drafts — we teach you not to.
Multi-State Licensing
State timelines, IMLC compact strategy, DEA multi-state registration, hospital privileging, and how to sequence your licensing portfolio to maximize geographic flexibility and minimize administrative drag.
Tax Architecture
The W-2 physician has taxes handled invisibly. The independent physician runs a business. LLC vs. S-Corp vs. PC, Solo 401(k) vs. SEP-IRA, quarterly estimated payments, Section 199A — we map the entire landscape.
Agency Intelligence
How agencies make money, what MSPs and VMS platforms do, how bill rates are structured, and what the recruiter across the table is not going to volunteer. Understanding the pipeline changes every conversation.
Fair Market Value & Compliance
Every employment agreement, locum contract, and medical directorship stipend carries FMV language. Physicians who don't understand it are professionally exposed. We teach you the Stark Law, AKS, and the FMV Triangle in plain language.
The Locums Brief
Your traditional CV was built for residency committees, not medical directors triaging email between cases. The Locums Brief distills what matters into 1–2 pages, optimized for a 30-second scan that moves you forward.
The Beyond Locums Series
A Curriculum Built
Volume by Volume
Each book in the Beyond Locums Series addresses one operational domain of independent physician practice — with paired CME courses, templates, and interactive tools for every volume.
The Locums Heart Surgeon
How a Cardiothoracic Surgeon Built an Independent Practice — and How Any Clinician Can Do the Same. The founding volume: PLLC setup, contract negotiation, malpractice, multi-state licensing, tax strategy, and the complete go-bag system.
- 18 chapters, 350+ pages
- Ready-to-use contract clause templates
- Go-bag and onboarding checklist
- Rate calculation framework
- Direct contracting playbook
The FMV Triangle
A Physician's Guide to Fair Market Value, Compliance, and Compensation in Modern Healthcare. The regulatory environment every independent physician operates inside — whether employed, contracted, or locum.
- Stark Law & Anti-Kickback Statute explained
- The three-vertex FMV compliance test
- Medical directorship & call coverage traps
- Real case vignettes with physician-author analysis
- Career strategy using FMV knowledge
How Staffing Really Works & Preparing for Locums
Volume III maps the entire agency-MSP-VMS pipeline so you stop learning it by paying tuition to it. Volume IV is the working handbook: Locums Brief, marketing, contract decoding, accounting, credentialing, and the LTA self-help tools.
- How bill rate, pay rate, and spread work
- MSP and VMS platforms decoded
- The Locums Brief vs. the CV
- 9-module CME companion courses
- 12 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™ (Vol III)
Who This Is For
Wherever You Are in the Transition
Physician burnout and moral injury are not primarily clinical problems — they are structural ones. Schedules fixed before physicians have input. Administrative layers multiplying between clinicians and decision-making authority. Compensation models built around productivity metrics rather than professional judgment. LTA is for the physician who has noticed.
Early Career
Build the independent infrastructure before you need it — so your first locum assignment is profitable and well-structured from day one.
Mid-Career & Burned Out
Reclaim schedule control, income upside, and professional dignity without leaving medicine — just leaving the arrangement that's limiting you.
Returning or Retiring
Return to practice on your own terms, at your own pace, in markets that value your specific clinical experience.
Continuing Medical Education
Earn CME Credit While
Building Your Practice
Every Beyond Locums volume has a companion CME course with learning objectives, content summaries, knowledge assessments, rationales, and reflection prompts — targeting AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™.
12
AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™
Volume III CME Companion — 12 modules, one per chapter, targeting one credit each. Topics include coverage gaps, staffing economics, FMV, Stark Law, and career strategy.
9
AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™
Volume IV CME Companion — 9 modules covering the Locums Brief, contract decoding, tax strategy, multi-state licensing, credentialing, and the LTA self-help toolkit.
Stop Learning the System
by Paying Tuition to It
Every day inside an arrangement that limits your autonomy, your income, and your professional judgment is a day of opportunity deferred. The operational map exists. Let's build your path.