CompHealth vs. Weatherby vs. AMN: Which Locum Agency Is Right for You?

CompHealth, Weatherby Healthcare, and AMN Healthcare collectively dominate the locum tenens placement market. Between them they place more physicians than any other combination of agencies — which means most locum physicians will encounter at least one of them, and many will work with two or all three simultaneously. This comparison covers the structural differences that matter most for physician negotiations: ownership, business model, contract terms, pay transparency, and which agency is actually the right fit for which type of physician.

1. Ownership and Corporate Structure

Understanding who owns these agencies is the most important contextual fact before engaging with any of them — because ownership determines incentives, and incentives determine how an agency actually behaves toward the physicians it places.

CompHealth is a brand within CHG Healthcare, a large privately held healthcare staffing conglomerate acquired by private equity in 2012. CHG also owns Weatherby Healthcare, RNnetwork, Global Medical Staffing, Modio Health (a credentialing technology platform used by hospitals), and Locumstory.com — an information resource that presents itself as independent but is explicitly described as “a part of CHG.” CompHealth and Weatherby share a corporate parent, shared infrastructure, and — critically — the same institutional interest in physician placement volume across both brands.

Weatherby Healthcare is CHG’s specialist-positioning brand, headquartered in Fort Lauderdale with a major operational expansion underway in Raleigh, North Carolina. It operates alongside CompHealth under shared CHG ownership but markets itself as more relationship-focused and subspecialty-oriented than its sister brand.

AMN Healthcare is a publicly traded company (NYSE: AMN) with no single parent company — institutional shareholders including BlackRock and Vanguard are its largest owners. AMN’s physician staffing operations run through Staff Care (locum tenens) and Merritt Hawkins (permanent placement). The public structure means AMN’s financials are disclosed quarterly in SEC filings, providing a level of transparency unavailable with CHG’s private structure. It also means AMN answers to shareholders in ways that directly affect recruiter flexibility and margin pressure.

The ownership comparison that matters most: CHG owns two competing locum brands plus the information resource physicians use to research those brands. AMN owns both a locum brand and a permanent placement firm — creating an incentive to convert locum physicians to permanent positions that CHG-owned agencies do not have in the same way. Neither structure is neutral from a physician’s perspective.

2. Business Model — How Each Agency Actually Makes Money

All three agencies operate on the same fundamental bill rate model: they bill facilities a gross hourly rate and pay physicians a portion of that rate, retaining the spread to cover overhead and profit. But the specific model varies meaningfully across the three.

CompHealth operates as a direct locum tenens placement agency — the primary revenue model is the spread between what facilities pay and what physicians receive on CompHealth-placed assignments. The agency’s scale and volume create a standardized rate structure with moderate individual negotiating flexibility.

Weatherby Healthcare operates similarly to CompHealth as a direct placement agency, with physician community reports suggesting markups in the 40-50% range — slightly higher than CompHealth’s reported range. Weatherby’s specialist positioning means its placements skew toward higher bill rate specialties, which makes the absolute dollar value of the spread larger even if the percentage is similar.

AMN Healthcare has the most complex revenue model of the three. In addition to direct placement margins, AMN operates Managed Service Provider and Vendor Management System programs for large hospital systems — acting as the vendor-of-record that manages all staffing agency relationships for a facility. In MSP arrangements, AMN takes an administrative fee of typically 3-10% of the bill rate before the placing agency even begins negotiating physician pay. This means physicians placed through an AMN-managed hospital slot — even by a different agency — are subject to an additional margin layer that reduces what the placing agency can offer. AMN’s 2026 consolidated gross margin target of 23.5-24% reflects this multi-layer model.

Markup ranges are reported by physician communities and are not verified figures from the agencies. Individual assignment margins vary by specialty, market, and timing.

3. Malpractice Coverage — All Three Default to Claims-Made

All three agencies default to claims-made malpractice coverage rather than occurrence coverage. This is the industry standard and is not specific to any one agency — but the tail coverage question applies equally to all three and must be resolved in writing before starting any assignment with any of them.

Claims-made coverage protects you only for claims reported during the active policy period. When an assignment ends, the policy lapses — and claims arising from work during the assignment period may not be covered without a tail policy that extends the reporting window. Who pays for tail coverage, under what exit scenarios, and for how long are contract-specific questions that vary by assignment. Do not assume any of the three agencies provides universal tail coverage — ask explicitly and get the answer in writing for each assignment.

Weatherby has slightly better-documented tail coordination practices than CompHealth or AMN based on publicly available information, and Weatherby self-insures in some cases — which means malpractice defense decisions are made by a party with a direct financial interest in the outcome rather than an independent carrier. AMN covers through a top-rated external carrier under a claims-made form. CompHealth’s coverage can vary by state or contract, and facility-provided coverage is sometimes the applicable policy rather than CompHealth’s own.

For the full malpractice coverage mechanics applicable to all three agencies, see the Locum Tenens Malpractice Insurance guide.

4. Contract Terms — What to Watch For at Each Agency

Non-compete and post-assignment restriction clauses appear in contracts at all three agencies. The specific terms are deal-specific rather than published universally, which means each contract must be reviewed individually. State law protections vary — Indiana’s hospital non-compete ban, Illinois’s Freedom to Work Act, Virginia’s SB 170, and similar statutes may limit enforceability depending on your assignment state and contract structure.

The CHG-specific concern with CompHealth and Weatherby: non-compete or exclusivity language may reference CHG Healthcare broadly rather than the specific brand — a restriction on working with “CHG affiliates” encompasses both CompHealth and Weatherby, potentially limiting your ability to work with the sister brand simultaneously. Read the defined terms in any CHG brand contract carefully.

The AMN-specific concern: watch for Merritt Hawkins permanent placement conversion clauses — language giving AMN a fee interest in your permanent placement at a facility where you locum. These clauses can reach six figures in value and are often buried in standard agreement language. They are negotiable and should be addressed before signing.

Cancellation terms are variable across all three. AMN has a recurring physician complaint pattern around payroll discrepancies and delays that is more specific than what is reported for CompHealth or Weatherby. Get cancellation and payroll terms in writing at all three agencies before starting any assignment. For the full contract review framework, see the Locum Tenens Contract Review guide.

5. Recruiter Experience and Pay Transparency

Recruiter quality is variable at all three agencies — a function of scale more than agency-specific culture. That said, there are meaningful differences in how physicians describe the recruiter experience across the three.

Weatherby consistently receives the strongest physician feedback on recruiter expertise and relationship quality — its specialist positioning appears to produce recruiters with deeper specialty knowledge in their assigned areas. The agency’s ten consecutive Best of Staffing Talent Awards reflect aggregate provider satisfaction scores that are meaningfully higher than typical for the industry. The most consistent Weatherby-specific complaint is verbal commitments not matching written contract terms — a pattern specific enough to warrant a firm personal policy of getting everything in writing.

CompHealth receives more variable physician feedback. Positive accounts cite breadth of assignment access and logistics support; negative accounts cite poor communication, mismatched assignments, and last-minute cancellations. Recruiter experience varies significantly by specialty focus and individual recruiter tenure.

AMN’s enterprise model produces the most institutional recruiter experience of the three — more relationship manager than dedicated physician advocate in many cases. The company’s focus on large health system MSP contracts means some recruiters prioritize institutional account management over individual physician placement optimization. Pay discrepancies and payroll delays are the most specific recurring complaint in physician feedback about AMN.

On pay transparency, all three agencies decline to disclose bill rates as standard practice. AMN’s public company status provides the most macroeconomic transparency — gross margin and segment revenue are disclosed quarterly in SEC filings, giving physicians context that CHG’s private structure does not offer. None of the three will volunteer bill rate information; at all three, asking directly is the only way to potentially get it.

6. The Dual Submission Problem — Unique to CHG Brands

Working with both CompHealth and Weatherby simultaneously creates a dual submission risk that does not exist when working with AMN alongside either CHG brand. Both CompHealth and Weatherby operate under shared CHG corporate ownership and infrastructure — if both agencies submit your credentials to the same facility, the facility’s Vendor Management System will typically auto-reject you as a duplicate submission, regardless of your qualifications. This is an automatic disqualification in most VMS systems, not a recoverable situation.

If you work with both CompHealth and Weatherby, maintain a running Submission Log tracking which facilities each agency has submitted your credentials to. Share the relevant portions proactively with both recruiters before authorizing any new submission. Do not assume they are coordinating — they are not, and the responsibility for preventing dual submissions falls entirely on you.

Working with AMN alongside either or both CHG brands does not create the same dual submission risk — AMN operates on a separate system from CHG’s infrastructure. The standard submission tracking discipline still applies, but the auto-rejection risk from shared backend systems is specific to the CompHealth/Weatherby pairing.

7. Who Each Agency Is Best For

CompHealth is best for: Physicians entering locum tenens for the first time who need maximum assignment access across specialties and geographies. Generalist specialties — hospitalist, family medicine, internal medicine, EM — where volume matters more than recruiter depth. Physicians targeting frontier or rural markets where CompHealth’s nationwide facility network is most differentiated. Physicians who want fast credentialing through Modio Health infrastructure.

Weatherby is best for: Subspecialists in hard-to-fill categories — dermatology, anesthesiology, and others — where recruiter specialty expertise matters. Physicians who prioritize logistics support and relationship quality over raw assignment volume. Physicians targeting rapid assignment starts where Modio-backed credentialing gives a meaningful speed advantage. Physicians who want a more dedicated recruiter relationship than CompHealth’s higher-volume model typically provides.

AMN is best for: Physicians targeting large integrated health systems and IDNs where AMN’s MSP relationships give it preferred or exclusive access. Broad-demand specialties where assignment volume and large system relationships outweigh the need for specialty-specific recruiter expertise. Physicians comfortable with enterprise complexity and the contract discipline required to navigate MSP structures and multi-layer margins.

None of the three is the right single-agency strategy. The physicians who extract the most value from the locum market run multiple agency relationships simultaneously — using each agency for what it does best while maintaining competitive pressure on rate through parallel conversations. CompHealth or Weatherby for breadth and credentialing speed; a specialty boutique agency for rate negotiation leverage in competitive subspecialty markets; AMN for large system access where its MSP position gives it unique reach.

8. The Bottom Line

CompHealth and Weatherby are functionally similar agencies with the same corporate parent, similar business models, and overlapping facility networks. The meaningful differences are Weatherby’s specialist positioning and stronger recruiter feedback, CompHealth’s broader volume and slightly lower reported markup range, and the dual submission risk that makes running both simultaneously a careful management exercise rather than a simple strategy.

AMN is a fundamentally different kind of company — an enterprise workforce solutions business that happens to include locum placement, not a locum agency that also does other things. Its MSP/VMS model, Merritt Hawkins conflict, and public company financial pressures create a different negotiating environment than either CHG brand. The transparency advantage of public financials is real and underused by physicians. The Merritt Hawkins permanent placement conflict and MSP margin layering are real risks that require explicit contract attention.

The independent reviews of each agency are available here: CompHealth Review 2026 | Weatherby Healthcare Review 2026 | AMN Healthcare Review 2026