Care management is a critical component in delivering personalized, quality patient care. However, healthcare organizations often face challenges in recruiting and retaining skilled professionals. To combat this, many hospitals, health systems, and provider organizations are forming strategic partnerships with specialized care management staffing agencies, like Medix. Let’s take a look at some of the specific challenges that healthcare organizations face, the solutions Medix offers, and recent Medix-client examples.
Challenge #1: Difficulties Finding Care Management Candidates
Finding qualified and experienced care management professionals can be a daunting, costly task for healthcare organizations’ HR departments. In most markets, the demand for these skilled individuals exceeds the supply of candidates.
Solution:
A strategic staffing partner can rely on their extensive network of care management professionals to find the talent you need. Here at Medix, we have 3+ million candidates in our talent pool, including thousands of care management professionals. We can screen them with our proprietary tools, and match them to your open positions based on hard skills, soft skills, and cultural fit.
A Recent Example: We’ve had multiple clients in hypercompetitive markets find it difficult to fill niche care management positions, including social workers. Roles were open for months, with recruiting expenses ballooning and even a loss in patient revenue. More importantly, some patients weren’t receiving the guidance or care coordination they so desperately needed. We were able to step in and find experienced temporary candidates from our talent pool. The positions were filled within days, bringing relief to full-time staff and better resources to patients.
Challenge #2: A Costly, Inflexible Staff
Care management needs can fluctuate based on patient volumes or seasonal demands. It’s difficult to continuously scale a care management workforce up or down. Adaptability is crucial so that your organization can maintain optimal staffing levels and control costs.
Solution:
We can help you build a cost-effective and flexible team by striking the right mix of permanent and temporary staff. You’ll be able to proactively bring on temporary staff in order to match anticipated busy periods, and reactively (and quickly) bring them on to help handle unexpected spikes in patient volume. This form of staff augmentation enables you to meet care management needs without going over budget or making unnecessary investments in full-time staff.
A Recent Example: We helped a client that was struggling to augment their workforce by providing a diverse bench of temporary candidates. The client was able to find the short-term staff they needed to match seasonal demand, yet weren’t left overstaffed during slower periods. This newfound level of flexibility enabled them to quickly scale up and down whenever needed, and reduce their labor costs without compromising patient care coordination.
Challenge #3: Burnout and Turnover
Care management professionals often face high-pressure situations, leading to burnout and turnover. They are particularly vulnerable to fatigue during high-volume periods.
Solution:
We can assist healthcare organizations like yours in managing workload fluctuations to prevent staff burnout. By providing additional support during peak periods, organizations can create a more sustainable and resilient care management workforce, ultimately reducing turnover and related expenses.
A Recent Example: We’ve seen countless examples of this. To put it simply, employees are sometimes overworked. And being overworked as a healthcare worker—when patients’ well-being is possibly on the line—only exacerbates burnout. Our staffing experts have helped organizations map out their years, determining when and where they will need resources. This planning allows for our clients to support their full-time staff with contractors, relieving pressure and increasing retention.
With care management continuing to play a pivotal role in healthcare, overcoming recruiting and retention challenges is paramount. Medix can help. Our team has 20+ years of experience helping organizations build high-performing care management teams that deliver exceptional patient care. We leverage our extensive talent pool, flexible staffing options, and proven strategies to combat your staffing challenges and optimize your care management team. Contact us today to get started.
