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The bill makes short-term health workforce staffing easier and reduces facility liability, but does so by expanding independent-contractor classification that diminishes worker protections and benefits and may shift costs onto patients and taxpayers.
Temporary physicians and advanced practice clinicians can be treated as independent contractors, allowing them and facilities greater flexibility to arrange short-term staffing.
Hospitals and clinics can fill temporary staffing gaps more easily with reduced employer liability and administrative burden under multiple federal statutes.
Locum tenens and other temporary clinicians may lose employee protections (minimum wage, overtime, collective bargaining) when classified as independent contractors.
Temporary clinicians may lose access to employer-provided benefits (health insurance, retirement) and face reduced job stability when treated as contractors.
Reclassification could weaken unions' ability to organize locum tenens clinicians and enforce labor standards at facilities.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Allows qualified locum tenens clinicians to be treated as independent contractors for listed federal employment laws and HHS program status rules unless a written employment agreement says otherwise.
Introduced February 25, 2026 by Buddy Carter · Last progress February 25, 2026
Treats qualified locum tenens physicians and advanced practice clinicians who provide temporary clinical services at a single site as independent contractors — for the listed federal employment and civil-rights statutes and for HHS programs that determine employee status — unless the practitioner and the facility expressly agree in writing that an employer–employee relationship exists. The change includes definitions of “qualified locum tenens,” lists covered federal laws and HHS programs, preserves state licensure and scope-of-practice authority, and makes clear it does not alter tax, Social Security, unemployment, Medicare/Medicaid, or other federal benefit rules. It takes effect for services performed on or after enactment and directs relevant agency heads and HHS to implement the rule for their programs.