The Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA) Rural Relief Program provides locum coverage for rural physicians practising in Saskatchewan communities with five physicians or fewer.
Program Overview
Clinics, Hospitals and Services
The Saskatchewan Medical Association (SMA) Rural Relief Locum Program is designed to provide short term relief for rural physicians practicing in communities with five physicians or less.
Host physicians request coverage through the SMA Rural Relief Portal that ranges from a minimum of four days to a maximum of thirty days per calendar year. Locums are assigned on a first come first serve basis with schedules being confirmed three months in advance. The typical locum assignment ranges from five to sixteen days.
Locums work as independent contractors and sign an annual contract with the SMA, with an option to renew each year.
Benefits
Life as an SMA locum means extensive travel around the beautiful province of Saskatchewan, experiencing new places and situations, there is no patient panel, follow up, minimum number of working days and all administrative duties are handled by the SMA, SHA and host physicians.
Payment within the locum program is based on a grid and is designed to reward the number of days worked. There are five levels within the grid to move up, based on the number of days worked, and within each grid there are three steps to work across over the course of the contract year, again, based on the number of days worked.
Physicians are paid a stipend rate for travel days, to a maximum of two per assignment.
Weeknight and weekend on-call stipend in addition to daily rate.
Mileage reimbursement at $0.70/KM for the first 5,000km and $0.64/KM for everything more than 5,000KM.
Peak period stipend is available for the months of July and August and February, Spring and Christmas break. This stipend is an additional $159 on top of daily rate for days worked within those high demand periods.