Physician Assistant - Family Medicine

Job Description: The Primary Care Float Provider is a regionally assigned clinician who supports RMR Primary Care by covering temporary provider absences, vacancies, onboarding needs, access gaps, holiday coverage requests, and designated in-basket work. The role requires flexibility, sound clinical judgment, clear communication, and the ability to integrate into multiple clinic teams while maintaining patient safety, continuity, and established regional workflows.

Purpose and Scope

The Primary Care Float Provider role supports access, continuity, and temporary coverage needs across RMR Primary Care.

Float providers may be utilized to:

• Cover PTO, leaves, vacancies, onboarding, and temporary access needs.
• Support in-basket work and holiday coverage as assigned.
• Maintain continuity while following clinic workflows.

Float providers should integrate temporarily into each assigned care team while maintaining regional standards.

General Expectations

Float providers are expected to:

• Remain flexible on location and assignment.
• Follow organizational policy, clinical standards, and clinic workflows.
• Honor reasonable provider preferences when clinically appropriate.
• Use independent clinical judgment when safety requires it.
• Collaborate with clinic, nursing, APP, physician, and operational teams.
• Complete documentation, assigned work, and handoffs promptly.

Scheduling Expectations

Assignments are based on regional access, coverage, and staffing needs.

Regional clinical and operational leadership will approve float-provider coverage needs and clinic assignments with input from practice managers and site leads.

Scheduling preferences

Float providers must submit scheduling and time-away preferences at least 90 days in advance

Final assignments consider access needs, PTO, staffing, vacancies, holidays, demand, and regional priorities.

Once a schedule has been finalized, changes should be minimized unless circumstances require an adjustment.

Practice assignments

The float provider may be assigned to RMR Primary Care locations based on operational need.

Predictable rotations should be used when possible, to support clinic familiarity.

Holiday Coverage

Float providers are expected to contribute meaningfully to holiday coverage.

Leadership requests each float provider cover 3 of 6 holiday weeks annually, based on regional needs and final schedule approval.

• New Year's Day
• Memorial Day
• Independence Day (July 4)
• Labor Day
• Thanksgiving Day
• Christmas Day

PTO, Leave, and Vacancy Coverage

Float providers may provide coverage for:

• Planned PTO, leave, or unexpected absence
• Vacancy, recruitment gap, or onboarding coverage
• Temporary access or capacity needs

When covering an absent provider, the float provider should use the established care-team workflow.

Coverage may include both scheduled patient visits and designated in-basket responsibilities.

In-Basket Coverage

When assigned to cover a provider who is out of the office, the float provider should actively manage the clinical portions of the assigned provider's in-basket.

Responsibilities include:

• Patient messages, results, refills, and phone encounters requiring provider action

• Follow-up questions, orders, and time-sensitive clinical items

Whenever possible, MA workflows should be completed according to established protocols before messages requiring provider-level decisions are escalated.

General principles

Goal: address clinically important work during the absence rather than holding it for the returning provider.

Float providers should

• Prioritize urgent and time-sensitive issues.
• Review enough information to make safe decisions
• Follow clinic workflows and reasonable provider preferences.
• Escalate when needed and avoid leaving urgent items unresolved.
• Make every effort to address same-day in-basket messages and older high-priority or time-sensitive items.

Complex issues that require substantial clinical assessment should generally be converted to an appropriate visit rather than managed through prolonged portal messaging.