Showing posts with label medical staffing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medical staffing. Show all posts

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

How physician-owned ASCs can overcome staffing challenges

The use of ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs) continues to soar as patients and physicians seek cost effective and safe alternatives to hospitals. More than 23 million procedures are performed at these facilities each year in the United States, and a recent report by the Ambulatory Surgical Center Association estimated that ASCs could reduce Medicare costs by more than $73 billion from 2019-2028.

Yet despite the enormous value these facilities provide, the physicians and administrators who own and operate them face significant challenges. One of the biggest barriers to success, and one that’s growing more pervasive every day, is staffing shortages.

While staffing shortages are nothing new to the healthcare industry, the pandemic elevated the issue to a critical level. In addition to nurses and other clinical team members, physicians, too, are exiting the profession in droves, many citing the pandemic as their primary reason. The American Medical Association has sounded the alarm, citing the pandemic as a harbinger of an upcoming physician shortage predicted by 2025.

According to the 2021 OR Manager Salary/Career Survey, during the past 12 months:56% of ASC leaders reported that recruiting experienced operating room nurses is more difficult compared last year
40% of ASC leaders reported that the most common staffing challenge was hiring more direct care staff

49% of ASC leaders reported increased registered nurse turnover


In many cases, ASCs are losing on staff recruitment and retention as nurses jump to high-paying hospital contracts with big sign-on bonuses. Today, thin workforces at ASCs are contributing to a range of issues, including,delays in billing and care, spikes in episodic cost of care, and concerns about risk to patient safety standards and quality of care. As patient volumes continue to rebound, backlogs of patients returning for procedures are higher than ever – only now ASC’s lack enough staff to support that need.

Improving staff retention and enhancing workforce optimization


To help safeguard against further drains on remaining staff, ASCs must focus on building team satisfaction. For example, they should regularly check shift schedules to ensure everyone receives adequate break times and focus on instilling a strong company culture among team members.

It is also important to adopt digital solutions that automate manual tasks, improve efficiencies, and enhance workforce optimization. These tools can leverage pre-designed workflows, streamline billing and operations processes, and help cover inbound call volumes to reduce the burden of work on nurses, care team, and front office staff. For example, some solutions support staff by reducing the burden of manual entry and time-consuming outbound calls for patient reminders. These solutions keep staff, patients, and surgical teams connected with texts, notifications, and hand-off reminders so that teams can stay in continuous contact, to operate smoothly and perfectly in-sync.

Creating stronger patient journey and experience—with fewer staff


To cover more of the patient journey and support staff across a wider set of functions, ASCs can engage with third-party payment solutions, designed specifically for these facilities, that increase monthly dollars collected by empowering patients with a variety of educational information and payment options.

Features like custom payment plans, financing opportunities, text-to-pay options, and helpful patient advocates improve revenue flow and the overall patient experience. Additional, and predictable revenue streams can support other strategic initiatives, such as onboarding additional nursing staff to help increase volume and improve focus on the patient experience.

ASCs can also benefit from solutions that function as a seamless extension of the facility and improve the entire patient journey, from pre-registration and pre-admission, to pre-and post-operative surgical support and convenient payments. These comprehensive external solutions represent the future of healthcare and will be key to success for ASCs as they continue to seek ways to operate with leaner staffs and increasing patient demand.


15% Off Medical Practice Supplies


VIEW ALL



Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Yellow)


Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Bright Orange)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Yellow)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Blue)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - White)


VIEW ALL

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: , ,

Sunday, July 10, 2022

Take advantage of the global talent pool without setting up an offshore subsidiary

The U.S. healthcare labor market is in crisis. Labor shortages are expected to continue for the next 5 to 10 years as a result of the pandemic.

Taking the hardest hit: positions at the low end of the wage spectrum. It’s predicted that 6.5 million employees will permanently leave their positions by 2026 with only 1.9 million people replacing them.

To counter the labor shortage, more and more healthcare companies are starting to take advantage of the global talent pool. Access to global talent enables companies to broaden their talent search, build business continuity across geographies, and shift cost structures.

Critical to the successful use of the global talent pool is deciding on a hiring model that makes the most sense for your organizational goals. Here are four of the most common ways companies are mobilizing global staff, along with some of their strengths and weaknesses.

1. Hiring freelancers


Freelance websites like Upwork and Fivver are now incredibly common. Their appeal is giving companies access to a global talent marketplace when searching for employees—whether part-time or full-time—that can immediately fulfill their needs. Freelance websites are great for small businesses with a small or niche need, however, become challenging at scale.

Services covered: None other than a provided talent marketplace

Strengths: Access to Global Talent
Ability to start at a small scale easily and cost-effectively

Weaknesses:

  • Lack of visibility and control:How do you know if the person you hired is working or performing? Are they helping multiple clients with different accounts?
  • Compliance: No one is ensuring that your employee is keeping up with local tax laws or compliance.
  • IT Support: If blackouts or outages occur, no support is provided to get your employee back online.
  • High management cost: How much is your time worth? $100/hr.? $1000/hr.? Ultimately, you are wholly responsible for the management of the employee, thus you own the management cost.
  • Turnover risk: In a freelance marketplace model, it is difficult to retain employees as they can bounce around to different clients and jobs whenever they see fit.


2. International Professional Employer Organization (PEO) or Employer of Record


International PEOs do the same things that a local PEO would do, except in a different country. These organizations make it easy for companies to be compliant with local laws when hiring globally. They do not, however, help with management, recruiting, and other things that make global teams successful.

Services covered: Payroll, tax, insurance, compliance, and benefits administration.

  • Strengths:Access to the global talent pool
  • Ability to start at small scale
  • Scalable
  • 100% compliance
  • Flexibility, visibility, and control of employees

Weaknesses: High Training and Management cost: In this model, 100% of the training and management of the employees is on you and your team, thus requiring high cost and high effort.
Recruiting: The recruitment process is 100% on you. This can be really challenging for companies that lack a physical presence in the place of hiring.
IT Support: Like the freelance model, IT support management is not possible without a physical site or available remote technical support.
Turnover Risks: As mentioned, turnover is difficult because it is solely managed by you and your team. No support or assistance is available in this model to help manage this and make it easier for you and your team.

3. Traditional Outsourcing


In a traditional outsourcing model, the vendor performs a service for the end customer. Services in a traditional outsourcing model include things such as medical billing, medical coding, eligibility verification, bookkeeping, and customer support. This model is incredibly common with its low effort. This model, however, has a bad reputation because of its lack of control, visibility, and flexibility.

Services covered: Payroll, tax, insurance, compliance, benefits administration, recruiting, management, facilities, IT Support, Turnover Management

Strengths Access to global talent
  • Compliance
  • Low Effort
  • Vendor Manages Turnover
  • IT and Facilities Support

Weaknesses Requires scale: Traditional outsourcing relationships require companies to start at a certain scale for it to work. This can make it prohibitive for small to mid-sized businesses and startups.
Long-Term Contracts: Most traditional outsourcing contracts are 1–2-year commitments and are rigid in nature.
Lack of visibility, control, and flexibility: There is no insight into who is performing the work and how it is being done. There’s high-level account management, but it’s difficult to have insight into how efficient the service really is.
Quality Control: In this model, there is high-level quality control, but for most clients, the outcomes are less than ideal.

4. Co-sourcing


Co-sourcing is a modern spin on traditional outsourcing. It can even be thought of as an International PEO service, with just a little bit extra. Co-sourcing was created to address the pain points in both traditional outsourcing and International PEO models. Co-sourcing is the closest companies can get to creating their own offshore subsidiary at a scale that makes sense for them. In a co-sourcing approach, we help healthcare organizations hire dedicated medical billing specialists, nurses, accountants, reporting analysts, patient support personnel, and more.

Services covered: Payroll, tax, insurance, compliance, and benefits administration, IT support, HR, recruiting, co-management support, facilities, turnover co-management

Strengths: Access to global talent
  • Ability to start at any scale
  • Maximum control, visibility, and flexibility
  • Easily scalable
  • Some of the management cost is shifted
  • IT and facilities support
  • Co-management to help ensure success
  • Month to month, flexible contracts

Weaknesses:I nitial training and management involvement: In this model, there is more involvement required from the client at the start to ensure success.
Turnover risks: Turnover is still a felt challenge for the client in this model. It is alleviated because of vendor support but it still exists.

The use of global talent is shaping the way healthcare companies hire and retain the employees they need to succeed. The four methods discussed will help different company types and sizes have success in combating the labor shortage.


15% Off Medical Practice Supplies


VIEW ALL



Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Yellow)


Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Bright Orange)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Pink)

Manual Prescription Pads (Light Yellow)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - Blue)

Manual Prescription Pad (Large - White)


VIEW ALL

Posted by at No comments:
Labels: ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)