Freedom & flexibility
Create your own schedule. You choose which assignments to take, where, and for how long.
Physician ownedPhysician ledVeteran ownedFounded by a locums physician
Practice medicine on your terms.
FreeUpMD was founded and is led by Justin R Moore, MD, a critical care physician who has worked locums himself. You pick the work, the places and the schedule. Our team handles everything else.
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Why physicians choose locums
Six kinds of freedom
Financial freedom
Supplement your income to pay off student loans, fund a child’s college education or build a nest egg for retirement.
Freedom to travel
Experience different practice settings and explore cultural and recreational opportunities across the country.
Expand your network
See firsthand how things are done in other practice settings and build relationships with colleagues nationwide.
Avoid burnout
Control over your schedule, a new setting and a focus on your patients help revive your passion for practicing medicine.
Dedicated team
Travel, lodging, transportation, licensing, credentialing and malpractice, all handled for you by one concierge team.
Justin R Moore, MD
Board certified in critical care and internal medicine, a U.S. Army veteran, and a physician who has traveled the country doing locums work himself. He built FreeUpMD on a physician-first philosophy.
- Critical care fellowship, Mercy St. Louis / St. Louis University
- U.S. Army veteran
- Locums physician
Our mission
Led by a physician who has worked the assignments himself.
Our mission is to provide top quality healthcare professionals to healthcare facilities in need. We understand the challenges on both sides of an assignment because our founder has worked both sides, and we hold ourselves to the highest standard of care and service.
Zac BrigantePresident
Caren SmithChief Operating Officer
Meghan PorterVP, Business Development
Open assignments
Assignments open right now.
Our full-service concierge team takes the paperwork off your plate.
- Travel
- Lodging
- Transportation
- Licensing
- Credentialing
- Malpractice
Financial freedom, built for 1099 physicians
Locums pays well. Nobody tells you what happens to your retirement.
The day you go independent you leave the hospital’s benefits behind: no employer retirement plan, no match, no group life, no group disability. The income goes up. The safety net disappears, and the tax bill arrives with nothing in front of it. FreeUpMD physicians get a private strategy session with Syndicate Financial to rebuild every one of those pieces around a locums income.
What your employed colleague gets that you don’t
A hospitalist on $400,000, employed, against the same physician working locums.
| Benefit | Employed | Locums 1099 |
|---|---|---|
| 401(k) employer match | $13,800/yr | $0 |
| Employer plan contribution | $7,500/yr | $0 |
| Group life | $800,000 coverage | $0 |
| Group disability | $20,000/mo | $0 |
| Twenty years of the first two, at 6% | $783,000 approx. | $0 |
Illustrative figures for a typical employed package, not a quote. The point is not the exact number — it is that the second column is a zero you have to fill yourself.
Disability coverage
The one that pays you if you cannot work. An employed physician is handed a group plan that ends with the job. Yours is an individual policy in your own name — nothing about it is group, it follows you between assignments, and it is the first thing a 1099 income should be protected by.
Replaces: group disability, with a policy you own
Bought your policy in residency? See how Lloyd’s of London can add to it ↓
Indexed universal life
This is the retirement income. Money you can reach before 59½ without the penalty, structured to come out tax-free, with a death benefit on it the whole time you are building it. The piece doing the work a 401(k) never got the chance to.
Replaces: the employer retirement plan
Fixed indexed annuities
A place to grow retirement money with protection from market losses and the option of income you cannot outlive.
Replaces: the employer match
Mortgage Free Life
Strong locums income aimed squarely at the house: owned outright in five to seven years rather than thirty. Then the payment that was going to a bank for the next twenty-three years goes to retirement instead.
Adds: a house nobody has a claim on, and the payment back
Tax mitigation
A 1099 physician in the top bracket is the most heavily taxed person in medicine — and the only one with real room to do something about it. Tax-deferred growth, distributions structured to come out tax-free, and a plan built with your CPA rather than around them.
Adds: the one advantage employment never gave you
Wealth management
Somebody still looking at the whole picture in year five, when the assignments have changed and the plan needs to change with them.
Replaces: the benefits department you no longer have
Financial services are offered by Syndicate Financial, an independent firm, and not by FreeUpMD. Insurance and annuity guarantees depend on the claims-paying ability of the issuing insurer. Wealth management is offered through Syndicate Financial’s registered investment adviser. This is general information, not tax, legal or investment advice — we work alongside your CPA, not in place of one.
Add a strategy session to my plan ↗
Disability coverage · Lloyd’s of London
Your income has grown since residency. Has your disability coverage?
Most physicians buy disability insurance early — in residency or their first year as an attending — and never revisit it. Your income has changed a lot since then. If something kept you from practicing, the policy you bought back then may cover only a fraction of what you earn today. We work with Lloyd’s of London to add coverage on top of what you already have.
- Why Lloyd’s
Built for high earners
Standard carriers limit how much income they will insure. Lloyd’s is known for covering what others will not, so your coverage can keep up with what you actually earn.
- Why Lloyd’s
Made for medicine
Coverage can be built around your specialty, so it reflects the years of training it took to practice it.
- Why Lloyd’s
Works with what you have
Keep the policy you already own. Lloyd’s coverage is designed to sit on top of it and any group plan, not replace them.
- Why Lloyd’s
Options if your health has changed
Had a few health hiccups over the years? Guaranteed coverage options can still be available, so a past diagnosis does not have to close the door.
Every physician is different
- What you earn today, and how it has changed
- The disability policy you already own, and any group coverage
- Your specialty and how you practice
- Your health history, so we know which options are open to you
We start with what you have and build from there. There is no one-size plan.
Why it matters for locums
- Your income is your biggest asset, and it depends on being able to practice
- As a 1099 physician, nobody hands you employer coverage between assignments
- Coverage in your own name goes with you wherever you work
- One review tells you exactly where you stand today
Disability coverage through Lloyd’s of London is offered by Syndicate Financial, not FreeUpMD. Coverage is placed with underwriters at Lloyd’s of London; availability, limits and terms vary by state and are subject to underwriting.
Review my disability coverage ↗
Why we are not like other staffing companies
Every employed physician is handed five things. You get an assignment.
Employed physician
A retirement plan, with the hospital paying in
Group life insurance
Group disability coverage
Somebody whose job is your benefits
A plan that outlasts this contract
Locums physician
Retirement money going in every monthAn IUL you own — this is the retirement income
Life insurance that follows youIn your name, not the hospital’s
Disability coverage that pays youYour own individual policy. Nothing here is group
Somebody whose job is your planA physician-led strategy session
A plan that outlasts this contractMortgage Free Life — the house gone in 5–7 years, then it funds retirement
The pay goes up the day you go independent. Everything in this column quietly goes away, and nobody mentions it.
We do not just fill gaps in health care. We specialize in relationships.
Your time is precious. Our team assists in every part of the credentialing process, from obtaining licenses to getting you to and from your assignment, so the hours you would lose to paperwork and travel arrangements go back to friends and family.
We have built trusted relationships with top hospitals and their communities. They put quality of care for their patients, and respect for our physicians, first.
Week 1
Fifty-two weeks. You decide who gets them.
On assignmentYours
26Weeks off
on locums
on locums
4Weeks off
employed
employed
A locums year is not fewer weeks of work. It is the same income in half the year.
For medical facilities
Quality physicians, vetted by a physician-led team.
10%average reduction in bill rates
$50K–$100Ksaved per physician, per year
No buyoutclauses when a physician moves to a permanent role
A+ ratedmalpractice insurance