The healthcare landscape is not only replete with staffing shortages, but running a practice while striving to adequately staff your facility is an arduous endeavor. On average, it takes anywhere from 30 to 120 days to hire a new healthcare worker. Think about it: from sourcing and vetting candidates to prequalifying interviews and credentialing, the process is a time-consuming and costly one.
Hospitals and healthcare facilities are leveraging a healthcare staffing partner to help bridge gaps and ensure they’re delivering optimal patient care. Perhaps the biggest benefit reaped from partnering with a healthcare staffing agency is the plethora of financial benefits you’ll enjoy. Here’s a look.
Reduce Lofty Turnover Costs
Compared to other industries, the healthcare field has the second-highest turnover rate – just trailing the hospitality space. Since 2014, the average Hospital in the U.S. has turned over 87.8% of its entire workforce. Not only does this translate into a massive hit to a healthcare organization’s bottom line, but it also means grappling with exorbitant costs to hire and replace medical staff.
For example, family medicine physicians alone generate a whopping $1.5 million in indirect revenue annually – meaning a hospital can easily face a revenue loss of $130,000 to $150,000 each month for a single key employee. What’s more, when healthcare staff turnover is high, organizations will inevitably face a fair amount of patient migration due to a poor experience, which equates to less referral traffic as well.
For a single bedside RN, turnover costs amount to an estimated $44,400 per nurse, according to the 2020 National Healthcare Retention & RN Staffing Report. On an annual basis, nursing turnover is resulting in approximately $3.6 million to $6.1 million in revenue loss.
Remove Upfront Hiring Costs
After a vacancy or need is identified, hospitals and healthcare facilities are investing up to $250,000 in a single candidate after marketing, interviewing, relocation stipends and sign-on bonuses are factored in. Due to the labor shortage and competitive nature of the healthcare space, a single medical worker can cost organizations upwards of $30,000 in interview expenses and $30,000 in sign-on bonuses.
Healthcare executives must also consider productivity loss and subsequent staff burnout that can arise from an understaffed facility. Once a candidate signs on the dotted line, there is a whole slew of additional expenses incurred from onboarding costs – including EHR training, credentialing, system orientation, etc.
By leveraging a healthcare staffing partner, the sourcing, vetting, interviewing and onboarding responsibilities are taken off your plate, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in cost savings.
Minimize Overtime Costs
Having a short-handed facility will ultimately impact every facet of your business model – from wait and response times to production output. It will also affect your existing staff. Most hospitals and organizations simply do not have the bandwidth to adjust timelines or output, which means the extra workload is passed on to current medical staff. This creates unwanted overtime and the burden of long hours for your most valuable healthcare workers.
Employing the help of a healthcare staffing partner gives you the flexibility to quickly address coverage gaps and fluctuations in patient flow that may arise. Contract medical personnel can shoulder additional needs without the facility having to cover the costs associated with providing full-time benefits.
Eliminate Benefit Costs
In-house employees come with costs like salary, PTO, benefits and other overhead expenses. Insurance costs alone can prove to be a massive drain on your company’s finances. At the most basic level, benefits, salary and employment taxes represent 1.25 to 1.4X a worker’s base salary, according to MIT. For instance, if you hire a healthcare worker with a salary of $50,000 per year, you’re looking at additional costs ranging from $16,500 to $20,000 for that one employee.
With the right healthcare staffing partner on your side, payroll and benefits costs are handled by the recruitment firm. This will result in substantial cost-savings – especially when it comes to workers that turnover quickly.
To learn more about the financial benefits your hospital or healthcare facility can reap from partnering with Polaris, contact our team of specialists today.