WHY?
A Locum Optometrist Policy is essential for maintaining uniformity and consistency in the way locum optometrists are booked, managed, and compensated within your practice.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown of why such a policy is important:
Ensures Uniform Scheduling
By setting specific hours for locums to work (weekdays, Saturdays, and public holidays), you ensure that there is no confusion or inconsistency in how hours are allocated.
This standardisation:
- Provides clear expectations for both locums and permanent optometrists, reducing misunderstandings about availability and scheduling.
- Ensures that the practice is properly staffed during busy periods, such as the first and last weekends of the month.
- Helps with planning for peak periods, ensuring that the practice can meet patient demand and their goals.
Consistent Sourcing and Booking Procedures
When we require optometrists and practice captains to be responsible for sourcing and booking locums in advance, it:
- Streamlines the process, making it clear who is responsible for securing locum coverage and reducing last-minute bookings.
- Reduces the chance of miscommunication or double bookings, ensuring that the practice is adequately staffed at all times.
- Creates a reliable way of filling gaps in staffing, avoiding any disruption to patient care.
Clear Payment Process
Having a formal payment submission process that includes both a payment request form and a verification step creates:
- Transparency : Both the locum and the optometrist are clear about how and when payment requests are submitted and reviewed.
- Accuracy : The verification step ensures that the hours worked are correct and in line with the booking.
- Efficiency : By having a clear process for payments and sign-offs by area managers and finance, you avoid delays or errors in compensation, which ensures that locums feel valued and are paid on time.
Consistency in Payment Timing
Informing locums upfront about the month-end payment schedule helps:
- Set Expectations: Locums will understand when to expect payment and avoid any confusion about when they will be compensated.
- Avoid Payment Disputes: By being transparent about when payments will be made, you reduce the risk of misunderstandings or dissatisfaction from locums.
- Facilitate Long-Term Relationships: When locums know the payment structure and schedule in advance, they are more likely to trust and continue working with your practice.
Prevent Service Disruptions
The policy clearly highlights the importance of ensuring locums are booked well in advance, especially for busy periods, such as weekends and public holidays:
- This proactive approach ensures that your practice won’t be left short-staffed, which could impact patient care and overall operations.
- Avoids last-minute scrambling for locums, ensuring the practice’s smooth operation.
LOCUM OPTOMETRIST POLICY
Booking Hours
Locum optometrists should be booked according to the following schedule:
- Weekdays: 10:00 - 16:00 (Start testing at 10:00)
- Saturdays and Public Holidays: 09:00 - 12:00 (Start testing at 09:00)
Lunch hour
When booking a locum, please confirm whether they will be taking a lunch hour or working through it.
- If the locum will be working during their lunch hour, ensure that your appointment book is open and available for that time.
- If they choose to take a lunch break, that hour will not be payable and will be deducted from the total hours worked.
Responsibility for Locum Bookings
- Optometrists, along with practice captains, are responsible for sourcing and booking a locum in advance.
- It is mandatory that an optometrist or locum is always available or booked in advance for the first weekend and the last weekend of a month, as these are our busiest periods.
- Please contact your regional manager for an updated list of reliable and frequently used locums in your area.
Locum Payment Request Submission
- No more manual invoices or requests will be accepted
- Please confirm the locum hourly rate when booking your locum
- Locums must submit their payment request via the following form: Payment Request Form
Share this link with your locums when booking them 🤩 - Optometrists must double-check the rate, hours and dates submitted via the following Google Sheet: Google Sheet for Hours Verification
Review and Payment Process
- Regional managers will review and sign off on the submissions, if they have any concerns - they will get in touch with you.
- Once approved, Finance will process the locum on our payroll system and load the payment.
- Locum payments will be made at month-end along with salary-payment runs. Optometrists must inform their locums of this payment schedule in advance.
- If a locum has a serious issue with this payment schedule that may result in their unwillingness to provide services, please contact Carisa to discuss an exception.
Something to note for the future
An independent contractor agreement will also be distributed in due course by our HR manager, which each locum must sign when they work at a practice for their first time.
This should also be completed by existing locums for record keeping.
Optometrists Working as Locum for Their Own Practice
In cases where an Optometrist works as a locum for their own practice , the following rules will apply to ensure uniformity and fairness across all practices:
- The same booking frames apply as for all other locums:
- Weekdays: 10:00–16:00
- Saturdays and Public Holidays: 09:00–12:00
- The same procedure regarding lunch hour deductions must be followed.
- The hourly rate applicable for self-locuming will be confirmed by your Regional Manager, upon request from the optometrist.
- All payment requests must be submitted via the Payment Request Form and verified through the Google Sheet for Hours Verification, in line with the process followed for other locums.
- These hours and fees will be processed via monthly payroll and taxed according to the optometrist’s applicable personal tax bracket. The payment will form part of your monthly payslip.
- The locum fees claimed by the optometrist will still form part of the practice's locum budget for that month, and must be booked and reported accordingly.
This ensures that all bookings, compensation, and tax reporting are handled transparently and in alignment with company policy.