Lucidity Direct

[Neuron]

Can’t seem to browse listings without signing up.  That is a non-starter for me.

[YSH]

NJ pulm doc wrote:

Hey I set up a Lucidity profile but am disappointed there isn’t a single job in my field (pulm/crit care).  What happened?  It sounded like a good concept.

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RosieQ wrote:

I signed up as well but the wages offered were in the 30th percentile for my field. No way would I leave my current job, especially to travel long distances. They encourage you to negotiate but when the first offer is laughable I just wasn’t really interested.

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OP, and agree with both above.  I looked into it when I first posted on here and have referred this option to several of my colleagues during these last two years.  Unfortunately, none of us were able to get much out of it.  We were all very hopeful.

 

[RosieQ]

I signed up as well but the wages offered were in the 30th percentile for my field. No way would I leave my current job, especially to travel long distances. They encourage you to negotiate but when the first offer is laughable I just wasn't really interested.

[NJ pulm doc]

Hey I set up a Lucidity profile but am disappointed there isn't a single job in my field (pulm/crit care).  What happened?  It sounded like a good concept.

[jfb]

Thank you for your feedback. We are working on addressing this. If you don't mind, what is your specialty?

[jfb]

Lucidity is always free for the physician and free to list for the practice. Lucidity charges the practice a flat rate % of the booking fee that is a small fraction of the typical agency fee (We believe this will allow physicians to be paid more, and practices to pay less, simultaneously). You can think of it similarly to a credit card where the vendor pays a small transaction fee when you use your card.

[ACN]

I would sign up preemptively, however, my specialty is not listed and it requires you to pick a specialty when creating a login.  Maybe "my specialty is not listed" as an option.

[The White Coat Investor]

jfb wrote:

We fully recognize that the utility of Lucidity is dependent on having a large, diverse portfolio of job opportunities.  Yes, you can expect more jobs to be listed soon. We have multiple agreements in place that have occurred over the last 3 weeks or so. We are working now to train these sites and make sure that we provide them with the resources they need to use the site appropriately. I would suggest checking back every couple of weeks as I think it will be slow over the next 1-2 months, but will increase significantly in early 2017. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and understanding. I can tell you we are working very hard to make Lucidity a truly great experience.

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Welcome to the forum! What is the business model for Lucidity? It doesn't sound like the job lookers pay. Do the job listers pay to be listed? Do you get some sort of commission when you make a connection? Do you sell ads? How does it work exactly?

[jfb]

We fully recognize that the utility of Lucidity is dependent on having a large, diverse portfolio of job opportunities.  Yes, you can expect more jobs to be listed soon. We have multiple agreements in place that have occurred over the last 3 weeks or so. We are working now to train these sites and make sure that we provide them with the resources they need to use the site appropriately. I would suggest checking back every couple of weeks as I think it will be slow over the next 1-2 months, but will increase significantly in early 2017. In the meantime, thank you for your patience and understanding. I can tell you we are working very hard to make Lucidity a truly great experience.

[childay]

I don't do locums but signed up, seems like a pretty slick website so far, lack of job postings aside.  Interesting idea

[Winkleweizen]

Any new EM positions going to open up soon? None of the current ones are very enticing

[jfb]

Thanks again for your interest. Ill try to answer a these questions:

 

1) Paperwork: Traditional locums agencies do help fill out some paperwork for you. However, there is usually some portion of the paperwork that they cannot or do not fill out. In my experience, they usually fill out basic demographic information and sometimes your educational history. Obviously the physician will have to fill out the sections that ask things like every address that you have lived at for the past 10 years, license holds, malpractice, privilege requests, sedation forms, etc.  Also, you will find that the amount of support for this varies based on the agency. At Lucidity, we try to ease the credentialing process by allowing you to store all of your credentialing documents on the platform. While our document management system is early in its functionality, eventually it will offer expiration notifications and other useful functions. Once you agree on a job, that site will immediately be able to download all of your documents and you will immediately have access to the hospital's credentialing forms. Additionally, the credentialing office at each hospital can provide the support of helping fill in some of the paperwork as they would for typical full-time staff physician application. In my personal experience, and from talking to others, the biggest hassle with credentialing is tracking down all the documents required. Filling out the paperwork is actually pretty easy and has never taken me that much time (certainly not enough to pay someone to do it for me). The locums agency presents this as a big service. Ultimately, each person just needs to decide if filling out the application is worth the margin that the agency takes off the top. As with travel, some people may still want a full service agency understanding they will pay more, while others recognize that with a little bit more work, they can use expedia, etc to book their trips with significant savings.

2) Partner Searching: This is a great question and one we have considered as my partner is a physician too. At this point, we have plans to allow for multiple physicians within the same field of practice to create "teams" where they can negotiate a common rate for covering a set number of shifts for a site. This happens not uncommonly in the locums space and can be favorable for physicians. We do not have current plans to link search features between users in different fields of practice. When we considered this, we thought people would prefer to perform the searches individually and look at opportunities in each region that are available for both specialties. We believe that Lucidity will allow you to do this more easily and transparently than through a traditional agency.

3) Travel: Travel is not traditionally paid by the locums agency. It is usually a pass through expense directly to the practice site. Again, a "service" that the agency inflates in importance. The agency will take your travel expenses and bill that expense directly to hospital, separate from whatever hourly rate the agency is getting paid to place you at that site. With Lucidity, travel (along with everything else) is negotiable. You can definitely negotiate to have travel covered, in which case the site pays. This negotiation occurs directly with the practice site and Lucidity has no involvement in negotiations. If you want assistance with actual travel arrangements, as mentioned, Lucidity has partnered with a travel agency who can help book flights, hotels, rental cars, etc. The fee for using the travel agency will be paid by Lucidity. Some physicians feel that they can negotiate higher rates if they don't request travel. This is an option for you as well.

Thank you again for the questions. Please don't hesitate to ask any others. Also, if you would like to discuss in more detail you are welcome to direct message me and I can share my contact information.

 

 

[homanga]

You mention a travel agency to help with arrangements but who is covering travel costs? This has traditionally been paid for by the booking agency, is this on the provider, lucidity or the practice in this model?

[braden]

As a resident in my final year and considering locum tenens work I find this really intriguing. It brings up two questions/concerns for me though:

1) I worry that this platform will not provide the paperwork support I've heard is the most helpful part of an agency, and therefore am hesitant to use this platform for my very first contracts.

2) My partner is also a physician and we would ideally like to find contracts in similar regions at similar times. This may difficult with locum tenens in general, but I wonder if this site could somehow make that search easier. It seems like once they build out their partner practices, it could make searching for more unique situations like mine easier.

Excited to see how this platform does!

[jfb]

Lucidity is designed to support all fields of medicine. As we grow, we will add additional specialties not currently listed (ENT, NSGY, ortho, urology, etc).