WageTime is payroll for locum tenens staffing agencies: the 1099 physicians you place and the W-2 recruiters who placed them settle on one payday, with fee-for-time pay and credential files on the same roster.
WageTime provides payroll mechanics, not tax or legal advice. Whether a provider is a 1099 contractor or a W-2 employee is a classification decision for you and your counsel; 1099 income is paid without tax withholding, and the provider handles their own estimated taxes. Sample screens use a demonstration environment.
Locum tenens payroll is not the warehouse-staffing treadmill. It is a smaller roster of credentialed clinicians, most of them independent contractors, paid a per-diem or hourly fee for time worked, plus a back office of W-2 recruiters who found them the assignment. Miss the classification, misread the pay basis, let a credential lapse, or withhold in the wrong state, and the fix is slow and costs real money.
Short locum assignments usually pay the physician as a 1099 independent contractor, not a W-2 employee: no tax withholding, no benefits, and a higher headline rate to offset the self-employment cost. Longer or agency-employed engagements sometimes flip to W-2. Either way the classification is your call with counsel, and payroll still has to pay both kinds of people correctly on the same Friday.
Under Medicare’s fee-for-time rules, a substitute provider is paid on a per-diem or hourly basis for time worked, not a salary and not a productivity split. Facilities bill those services under the regular physician’s NPI with the Q6 modifier, for up to sixty continuous days. Your payroll therefore runs on day rates and hourly fees, not an annual salary divided by twenty-six.
Before a locum sees a patient the file has to be complete: an active state medical license for the assignment state, DEA registration, board certification, and malpractice coverage with tail. Credentialing proves the provider is qualified; privileging is the facility saying which procedures they may perform. If any of it expires mid-assignment, the provider stops and your billing stops with them.
The clinicians are 1099. The recruiters, credentialing coordinators, and branch staff who placed them are W-2, often on base plus a placement bonus. Agencies typically end up with a contractor-payment tool bolted onto a separate employee payroll, reconciled by hand every single period.
A locum physician can cover four states in a year. For a W-2 locum that means multi-state withholding that follows the worksite. For a 1099 contractor there is no withholding at all, but the year-end 1099-NEC still has to reflect exactly what you paid. One roster, two completely different tax treatments, running at the same time.
In the same run: WageTime pays locum physicians engaged as independent contractors their contract rate without withholding, while W-2 recruiters and coordinators are withheld and filed, and both settle on one payday.
Replaces the contractor-payment app bolted onto a separate W-2 payroll, reconciled by hand every period.
Fee-for-time pay runs as WageTime pay codes, not a salary: a day rate for a per-diem shift, an hourly rate for coverage, and call pay alongside, itemized by day, hour, and call on one statement.
Replaces the salary field a locum’s pay does not fit, and the spreadsheet where call and completion pay get added by hand.
The whole credential file lives on the provider’s record: every state medical license, DEA registration, board certification, and the malpractice certificate the agency carries, each with its own expiration date and the document attached.
| Provider | Credential | Expires |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Alan M., HospitalistTX, NM, OK · 61 days out | State medical license | Aug 14 |
| Priya S., CRNAFederal · expires Apr 2 | DEA registration | 18 days |
| Dr. Alan M., HospitalistCarried by agency · Apr 11 | Malpractice, tail | 27 days |
| Dr. Omar R., RadiologyNational · 150 days out | ABR board certification | Nov 20 |
Replaces the shared drive of scanned licenses nobody reconciled, and the assignment that fell through when a DEA registration quietly expired.
Two ways, split by how each provider is engaged: a 1099 locum has no income tax withheld and gets a year-end 1099-NEC, while W-2 withholding follows the work address, state by state.
| Person | Type | Tax handling |
|---|---|---|
| Dr. Alan M., HospitalistTX assignment | 1099 | No withholding, 1099-NEC |
| Priya S., CRNACO assignment | 1099 | No withholding, 1099-NEC |
| Marcus B., RecruiterIL (HQ) | W-2 | IL withholding, filed |
| Dr. Sara L., PsychiatryOH assignment | W-2 | OH plus Columbus municipal |
Replaces the January guess about whether a provider gets a 1099 or a W-2, made at year-end instead of at setup.
Full-service payroll is $10 a month per person paid that month, plus $50 a month per company, with unlimited runs. No long-term contracts, no per-run charges.
Off-cycle runs and bonuses cost nothing extra. No long-term contracts; cancel anytime.
Example: 50 people paid × $10 + $50 company = $550 for the month
HR & hiring, onboarding, PTO, time tracking, benefits, and workers’ comp are optional add-ons, priced separately when you’re ready.
See a demoBoth models exist, and it depends on the assignment. Short locum engagements are usually paid as 1099 independent contractors, while some longer or agency-employed arrangements are W-2. The classification is a legal decision for the agency and its counsel, not a payroll setting. WageTime pays each provider the way you classify them and issues the matching 1099 or W-2 at year-end.
Yes. WageTime runs 1099 contractors and W-2 employees in one payroll, so your locum physicians and your recruiters and coordinators settle on the same payday. Contractors are paid without tax withholding and receive a 1099-NEC; W-2 staff have taxes withheld and filed and receive a W-2. Both sets of year-end forms are included.
On a fee-for-time basis. Locum physicians are typically paid a per-diem day rate or an hourly rate for time worked, not an annual salary. In WageTime those run as pay codes, with on-call, standby, and call-back pay and any sign-on or completion bonus as their own codes, so a week that mixes a day rate and hourly cross-cover comes out itemized and correct.
The Q6 modifier and 60-day rule are Medicare billing rules for the facility, not payroll settings. A regular physician can bill a substitute’s services under their own NPI with the Q6 modifier for up to sixty continuous days, and Medicare expects the locum paid on a fee-for-time, per-diem or hourly, basis. WageTime pays that fee as a pay code; how your client bills Medicare stays with the facility.
Yes. A locum physician usually carries medical licenses in several states at once, plus a DEA registration, board certification, and the malpractice certificate your agency provides. WageTime stores each of those on the provider’s record with its own renewal date and document, and escalating alerts surface a credential that is about to expire so you can renew it before it stops an assignment.
$50 a month for the company plus $10 for each person paid that month, with unlimited runs. A 1099 physician and a W-2 recruiter each count as one person paid, and weekly pay costs the same as biweekly. An agency paying 20 physicians and 5 internal staff in a month is $300, and a slow month costs less because you pay only for people paid.
One physician’s per-diem week with call pay, one recruiter on base plus bonus, and your credential list. Twenty minutes with a payroll specialist on a live demo company: you’ll see 1099 physicians and W-2 staff run together, fee-for-time and call pay as pay codes, the credential-expiration file, and the split between contractor and employee tax treatment.
Book a 20-minute demo