Barton Associates
Solving the Physician Shortage Through Locum Tenens

T

he United States is experiencing a major demographic shift—the 65+ population is expanding at an unprecedented rate, and as of 2023, Baby Boomers were 21% of the nation’s general population. Coined the “Silver Tsunami” in the early 2000s, this increase in the country’s older population places distinct stressors on medical facilities across the country: as patients age, they often require more comprehensive and complex healthcare services, but medical providers are also aging and retiring from the workforce, leaving patients with fewer avenues for care.
The solution? Locum tenens providers. For more than two decades, Barton Associates, one of the nation’s leading locum tenens staffing agencies, has served as a go-to partner for hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities across the U.S. in their fight against the paralyzing crash of the Silver Tsunami. By recruiting and staffing highly-skilled doctors, nurse practitioners (NPs), physician assistants (PAs), and dentists who work shortor long-term assignments at understaffed facilities, Barton acts as a crucial partner for these struggling health systems, allowing them to maintain the high level of medical care patients deserve and expect. It’s this steadfast commitment to locum tenens staffing that earns Barton Associates the title of Healthcare Staffing and Recruiting Firm of the Year.

“Medical professionals are in increasingly short supply in the United States—in fact, the Association of American Medical Colleges projects that the country will be short up to 86,000 physicians by 2036,” said Lina Gallotto, executive vice president of Barton Associates and President of Barton Healthcare Staffing. “Numbers like these illustrate the growing inequities in patient access to quality healthcare, and as a locum tenens staffing agency, Barton’s well-equipped to help struggling facilities find temporary medical providers so they can continue to care for their patients.”

Solving the Staffing Shortage with Locum Tenens

With facilities across the country dealing with fewer providers and aging patients, locum tenens staffing and recruiting experts Barton Associates has stepped up to provide solutions. Along with its sister companies Barton Healthcare Staffing and Wellhart, the three brands staff various types of locum tenens providers and travel clinicians throughout the U.S., constantly building relationships with recruited providers and clinicians in order to staff facilities who desperately need extra hands.

While Barton Associates focuses primarily on staffing and recruiting locum tenens providers, the company expanded its focus in recent years as the healthcare industry changed. In 2018, rising demand for travel allied health clinicians and travel nurses led to the creation of Barton Healthcare Staffing, which recruits and staffs those critical clinicians. That same year, Barton founded Wellhart, which places locum tenens anesthesiologists, CRNAs, radiologists, hospitalists, and emergency medicine professionals at traditional medical facilities and at government agencies.

Rural Hospitals, IHS Facilities, and Humanitarian Aid

Poor, rural facilities often feel the impact of the provider shortage more acutely than those in suburban or urban areas, and Barton Associates along with its sister companies have made it a priority to focus on staffing medical facilities in these more pastoral regions of the U.S. By sending providers to take temporary positions at healthcare facilities with the greatest shortages, Barton Associates works to ensure that everyone gets the healthcare they need, no matter where they live.

But it’s not just rural medical facilities that are feeling the strain in medical staff—Indian Health Service (IHS) facilities often also struggle to find providers to care for its Native American patients. Since Barton recruiters and account executives staff by provider type, rather than geographic area, the company is able to effectively staff multiple areas of need at the same time, such as rural hospitals and IHS facilities.

In addition to staffing rural and IHS medical facilities, Barton and its sister companies have also made an incredible impact with government partners. In 2021, following the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, Wellhart partnered with two clients in immediate need of locum tenens providers to provide medical assistance to Afghan refugees. Multiple locations opened within a short time span, and Wellhart placed 120 providers on over 3,500 shifts.

Proactive Recruitment and Quality Placements

To solve the staffing shortage caused by the Silver Tsunami, Barton and its sister companies implement a proactive recruitment model that assures the quality and readiness of healthcare professionals before they are presented with clients and placed on assignment. Behind the scenes, recruiters proactively search the marketplace to identify candidates with strong clinical capabilities, exceptional skill sets, and experience.

Barton uses a sophisticated digital marketing program, which includes social media, paid search campaigns, and email marketing, to find quality candidates. This approach helps them consistently attract a steady stream of new providers into its database each month. Recently, the company has begun to leverage AI to improve upon their business model, creating efficiencies that will expedite the entire workflow, a huge benefit to the client, medical providers/clinicians, and in-need patients.

By consistently delivering capable staff, the company builds trust and maintains long-term relationships with its clients—the key strategy behind its current growing services. Its one-on-one approach of assigning one dedicated account manager to each client allows Barton Associates to forge strong connections— and ensures that it understands and meets clients’ staffing needs promptly and effectively.

Keeping Up with a Changing Healthcare Staffing Landscape

In order to maintain its status as one of the top locum tenens staffing agencies, Barton Associates’ internal teams constantly keep an eye on the changing healthcare industry in order to adapt and provide services that are on the cutting edge.

Barton Associates, Barton Healthcare Staffing, and Wellhart each help their providers gain licensure in the states they’re looking to take assignments. In order to do so quickly and efficiently, the companies keep tabs on changing licence reciprocity rules and evolving licensure requirements for providers in each state. For physicians, the companies consistently check changes to the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC), which essentially allows physicians to bypass the many steps and barriers to becoming licensed in participating states. Currently, the IMLC includes 40 states, the District of Columbia, and the territory of Guam.

With the IMLC, Barton Associates is able to quickly and effectively employ locum tenens physicians in participating states. The national shortage in physicians is forcing more states to follow suit in adopting legislation that allows locum tenens providers to perform their duties with minimal barriers. Staying on top of updating and changing licensure is how Barton remains one of the top locum tenens staffing firms in the U.S.

Barton Bridges the Gap

As a locum tenens staffing agency, Barton Associates strives to combat the Silver Tsunami and the increased demand for healthcare providers. The need to provide care for an aging population and replace retiring physicians has grown. Barton’s dedicated data team plays a key role in this effort, leveraging their expertise to develop standard provider identification and matching algorithms.

With an aging population impacting both patients and providers, locum tenens staffing agencies like Barton are the key to solving the significant physician shortage. “By continuously embracing new technologies and innovations, we aim to improve our staffing services and deliver an unparalleled level of service to our clients,” says MaryAnn Stolgitis, president of Wellhart.