Job Placement · Healthcare · Staffing Agency Alternative
Healthcare staffing agencies, locum tenens firms and permanent search firms solve different problems and get treated as interchangeable more often than they should. This guide covers physician, LPN and home health decisions specifically, with the comparison-shopping questions the role-specific pages do not answer.
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Answer This Before Anything Else
Almost every wrong hiring decision in healthcare staffing starts here. The two problems look similar and are solved by completely different businesses.
| What is actually true right now | The model that fits |
|---|---|
| A shift, a leave, or a census spike needs covering this week or this quarter | A staffing, travel or per diem agency, or locum tenens for physicians |
| Demand is seasonal or genuinely unpredictable and a full-time hire would sit idle between peaks | Per diem or intermittent staffing, matching NAPEO's own definition of legitimate temporary staffing |
| The role is budgeted, permanent, and open for the foreseeable future | A permanent search, either in-house recruiting or a direct-hire firm like BEG |
| The role is senior, specialized, or requires licensure and credentialing that pays off over years | A permanent, specialized search rather than a generalist posting |
Every question below assumes you have already answered this one honestly. If the answer is coverage, the rest of this page still helps you evaluate agencies, just not BEG.
Three Numbers That Explain The Whole Market
Because the shortage is real at the top of the pay scale, the replacement math is broken in the middle of it, and the staffing industry built around both is larger than most buyers realize.
Five Models, Side By Side
Every one of these is a legitimate business for the right situation. None of them is right for every situation, including BEG.
| Model | Who employs the clinician | How you pay | Right when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Staffing, travel or per diem agency | The agency | Hourly bill rate, pay rate plus a markup commonly 20% to 75%, higher on scarce roles | An absence, a skill shortage, or seasonal volume, per NAPEO's own definition. |
| Locum tenens (physicians) | The locum firm, as contractor | Daily rate plus travel, lodging and malpractice cover | Call or clinic coverage during a leave, a resignation, or while a permanent search is live. |
| DIY in-house recruiting | You, once someone is found | Internal recruiter time and job board spend, no placement fee, no guaranteed timeline | You have recruiting capacity and the role can wait without cost pressure. |
| Contingency recruiter or headhunter | You | Percentage of first-year salary, paid only on placement, typically 20% to 25% | You want no cost until someone starts and accept the fee scaling with the offer. |
| BEG permanent placement | You | Flat milestone fee, tiered by role from $4,680 to $27,168, fixed at the start | The line is permanent and budgeted, any clinical or administrative title, and you want a 45-day replacement term in writing. |
For the role-specific numbers behind that BEG range, see nurse staffing agency alternative, CNA staffing agency alternative and medical assistant staffing agency alternative.
Two Seats, Two Different Clocks
Completely different clocks. A physician hire is gated by credentialing that runs for weeks after the offer. An LPN hire is gated by licensure and, in some settings, by which state’s scope of practice applies.
| Seat | What gates the start date | Where it goes wrong |
|---|---|---|
| Physician | State licensure, hospital credentialing and privileging, then Medicare and commercial payer enrollment, largely sequential. | Retrospective Medicare billing reaches back only 30 days from the enrollment effective date, so a late start is lost revenue, not just a delay. |
| LPN or LVN | Current licensure in your state, and confirmation of what your specific nurse practice act permits the role to do. | Scope of practice genuinely changes at the state line, so a candidate relocating in may have routinely done tasks your state does not permit, or the reverse. |
Full detail lives on the dedicated physician search page and LPN and LVN search page. isolved, whose Job Placement service BEG resells, describes the model as delivering qualified, interview-ready candidates, which is the sourcing half of what still has to clear licensure and credentialing afterward.
Where The Dollar Gap Is Largest
The dollar difference between milestone billing and a contingency percentage grows with the salary, which makes physician hiring the clearest example. At the $275,930 national physician median, a 20% contingency fee is $55,186 and a 25% fee is $68,983. BEG prices a physician search as a Tier V engagement at $22,640 to $27,168, roughly $32,500 to $41,800 less on the same hire, fixed before sourcing begins.
Why This Is Not A Staffing Comparison
Locum tenens pricing is a daily rate for temporary coverage, not a placement fee, so it answers a different question than the one above. The comparison that matters is contingency versus milestone billing for a permanent hire. Staffing and locum pricing belongs in a separate conversation about whether you need coverage at all right now.
FAQ
A staffing agency employs clinicians and bills you hourly for their time. BEG runs a permanent search and the clinician becomes your employee, priced as a flat milestone fee agreed before sourcing starts, not an hourly rate.
Yes, in practice. A locum tenens firm is the physician staffing model: it contracts or employs the physician and bills your organization a daily rate, plus travel, lodging and malpractice coverage, for the length of the assignment. BEG does not contract or employ physicians. We run a permanent search that ends with a physician on your medical staff and your payer contracts.
Locum pricing is a daily rate plus expenses for the length of the assignment, which is not directly comparable to a one-time fee. For context, a contingency physician recruiter charging 20% to 25% of the $275,930 national median physician salary would run $55,186 to $68,983. BEG prices a permanent physician search as a Tier V engagement at $22,640 to $27,168, fixed when the search opens.
An LPN staffing agency supplies licensed practical or vocational nurses on an hourly bill rate, commonly used by long term care providers to cover shifts. It is the right tool for a real absence or a seasonal gap. For a permanent budgeted line, BEG places LPNs and LVNs as a Tier II engagement at $9,381 to $11,257, against $12,880 to $16,100 a 20% to 25% contingency fee would cost at the $64,400 national median.
Both models exist in home health, for different reasons. Per diem and intermittent home health coverage is a legitimate staffing-agency use case, matching NAPEO’s own description of temporary staffing as covering absences, short skill shortages and seasonal or fluctuating workloads. BEG places permanent home health hires, from LPNs and aides to clinical supervisors, as budgeted employees on your payroll, on the same milestone terms as our other healthcare searches.
Four things, in order: how the markup is disclosed on the bill rate, whether a conversion or buyout fee applies if you want to hire someone directly, who legally employs the worker and what that means for liability, and how the agency’s guarantee compares to a straightforward replacement term. We do not publish a ranked list of competing agencies, whether they call themselves a staffing agency, a staffing firm or an employment agency, because that comparison depends on your specialty, region and volume, but those four questions apply to any agency you are evaluating, staffing or direct-hire.
The terms get used loosely, but the mechanics differ. A placement or recruiting agency, contingency or otherwise, sources permanent hires and is typically paid a percentage of salary on a successful placement. A staffing agency employs the worker and bills hourly. BEG is closer to the first category structurally, but prices on flat milestones rather than a percentage of salary, which is the specific difference worth asking about with any firm using either label.
No, and treating them as interchangeable is the most expensive mistake on this page. Travel and per diem agencies solve a coverage problem: the worker is never your employee and the arrangement ends when the contract does. A permanent search solves a headcount problem: the person joins your organization and stays. NSI reports 70.7% of hospitals surveyed want to reduce reliance on travel and agency staff, which is a hiring problem being paid for as an hourly line item.
The full clinical and administrative range: physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, registered nurses, LPNs and LVNs, medical assistants and CNAs, charge nurses, nurse managers, directors of nursing, clinical directors, and executive seats including chief medical officer and VP of clinical operations. Each role has its own fee tier reflecting search complexity and compensation level.
They are structurally different, not directly comparable. Staffing markup runs 20% to 75% of the hourly pay rate, sometimes over 100% on scarce or credentialed roles, and recurs every hour billed. BEG’s milestone fee is a one-time amount tied to search progress, set when the search opens and unaffected by how long the person ultimately stays on staff.
Yes, functionally. Healthcare staffing agency, healthcare staffing company, healthcare staffing firm and healthcare employment agency all describe the same hourly bill rate model: the agency employs the clinician and bills your organization for the hours worked. Healthcare recruitment agency gets used more loosely, sometimes for that same hourly model and sometimes for a percentage-fee placement firm, so it is worth asking directly which one you are talking to. None of those labels describe BEG. BEG is not a staffing agency, a recruitment agency or an employment agency. BEG runs permanent searches on flat milestone billing instead.
Routinely, and it is often the right combination. Agency or locum coverage protects ratios and patient access today. A parallel BEG search closes the budgeted line for good. isolved, whose Job Placement program BEG resells on milestone terms, describes the service as sourcing and pre-screening candidates to deliver qualified, interview-ready applicants, which is the permanent half of that pairing.
Looking for a specific role? See nurse staffing alternatives, CNA staffing alternatives and physician placement, or all healthcare placement.
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