COVID-19 pandemic has left many of the medical staff overwhelmed and they suffered burnout and during November month we’ll be approaching the Holiday season so many staffs will expect time to spend with their family and friends. Staff shortage is not new for Hospitals and Medical practices As per the MGMA survey found that 40% of the medical practices as having experienced staff shortages.
Medical staff are the heart and soul of a physician’s practice and it is vital to take good care of the medical staff and protect them from having burn-out and mental health issues. Giving them enough time to spend with families and friends will make them feel like a part of the tribe and a sense of belonging. Here are some of the ways, medical practices can manage staffing-related issues.
Increasing remuneration for the position:
People are the foundation of healthcare organizations. Increasing remuneration might be one of the old tricks in the management books to get the staff to work overtime or on holidays. Providing incentives for working on holidays would be a motivation for the Nurses and Front office staff. It is also important to remember the human factor when providing compensation because people have different motivation factors, some prefer to leave for working overtime and others prefer incentives. Overall providing good compensation is a good way of managing staff during shortages in Medical practice and hospitals.
Using Contract staff who are travelers
Some nursing staffs prefer job stability offers and some nurses sacrifice stability for adventure. Recruiting Travel nurses in the contract for your practice can be a good way to address the staffing shortage for the medical practice and Hospitals. Getting an experienced nurse staff who is a traveler would also bring a new perspective in approaching the job and the existing workforce could learn a couple of things from the outsiders.
Cross-train your staffs
We are not in an era where ‘technology makes everything easy’ but rather an era of increased complexity and we need cross-functional specialization to thrive the staff needs to train in various aspects like front office desk, insurance verification, and customer service for the patient. If the majority of the staff are trained in other functions and workflow it would be easy to compensate and allocate leave and vacation for the employees. And it is also imperative to create a culture in the organization where everyone has to volunteer and assist each other and no one should say “that’s not my job”
Outsourcing your AR and denials
Outsourcing your Medical billing process could be a big decision and if done properly will reduce the burden of paperwork for the medical staff. A survey from AMA found that 86% of the physicians feel that the burden of paperwork is their main issue. And keeping up with the insurance update can be a challenge for the medical staff but when left unchecked can impact the cash flow in a detrimentally way. Outsourcing your paperwork with a company with a good reputation will largely assist the medical practices during staff shortages.
Adopting Telehealth Strategy
Telehealth utilization has increased 32 times after the pandemic and estimated up to $250 billion of US healthcare could spend on telehealth or virtual care. Most of the Evaluation and Management(E/M) services can be done virtually. And some Millennials are so keen on time-saving, so they prefer telehealth over Face-to-Face visits. Even for the healthcare provider, it would be easy to provide service and it would come in handy especially during holiday seasons. Assessing and adopting a hybrid model would be beneficial for the patients as well as the providers.
