Alberta physicians will get $1,200 a day and have flight and hotel bills paid if they work on-call shifts at the hospital in Fort McMurray, a move Health Minister Dave Hancock called a short-term solution to the community's doctor shortage.

The $338,000 program will pay doctors to provide hospital care for patients without a family doctor in Fort McMurray, the Alberta government announced Tuesday.

Hancock said there are doctor shortages in many other parts of the province, but the problem is most severe in Fort McMurray.

"The area of shortage and need for coverage is not localized to Fort McMurray, but it's intense in Fort McMurray. So that was an opportunity to really put in play that process and to show that it works, but it's not the long-term solution, obviously," he said.

"There's a real opportunity in Fort McMurray to look at how you do service delivery in that type of a community," he said.