How Do You Attract and Keep the Best Medical Staff

Whatever the reason, when a tenured staff person departs that person takes with them all your teachings, new techniques, business protocols, and staff training with them and will typically end up enhancing the practice of another doctor, who might be your competitor!

Low Wages
Childcare Issues
Lack of Clear Job Descriptions
Micro-Management
Lack of Employee Reviews
Unrealistic Performance Expectations
Failure to say Thank You or Job Well Done
Discriminatory Work Environment
Personality Conflicts
Outdated Equipment or Process and Procedures
Rude/Ill-mannered/Ill-tempered Doctor or Practice Manager
Failure to create work versus home life boundaries

What will set you or your practice apart when patients are being swayed by so many options and so many offers? A top-notch medical staff!!! Just think about it, how would you feel if you saw new faces every time you visited a business establishment.

Constant change, lack of familiarity, and instability can be very unsettling and detrimental to your practice. Your patients need to know who they are dealing with on a regular basis, a friendly face who has access to their very personal information and medical records. Seeing familiar faces builds trust, builds confidence, and builds reassurance about the kind of care they can expect and will receive at your practice and with your staff. No Doctor or Practice Manager wants to be held hostage by their staff, nor should they be.

Our point here is that some team members are indispensable. It is also true that when your patients notice a high turnover of staff, they feel less secure and confident about the doctor or the patient care process. Patients look for and need the security that comes from seeing and having a familiar face to speak with about their issues or concerns. It’s part of the continuity of patient care. A familiar face ensures a consistent patient experience at your practice; they want to know what to expect and whom to expect it from. Patient Prospects are much more informed today and as a result, expect a higher quality of care and professionalism. You can’t create that type of high-end experience with high turnover.

How Do You Attract and Keep the Best Staff

Offer a Competitive Wage and Benefits Package
Create a Positive and Encouraging Work Environment
Encourage Friendly Competition surrounding positive patient reviews
Promote Continuing Education and Self Development
Avoid, Absolutely Avoid Micromanagement (Time Waster)
Avoid overutilization of salaried employees with excessive hours over 50
Provide consistent and positive feedback related to their performance
Get their input about changes in process and procedures

Doctors and Practice Managers must recognize, that just as you compete for new patients, you must also be prepared to compete for the best personnel to add to your staff. Even Google, Apple, Facebook, and LinkedIn compete with one another for the best staff. All the more so for, the more competitive areas of Plastic Surgery, Cosmetic Dentistry, Dermatology, Medical Spas, Anti Aging, Concierge Medicine, or any other fee for service business.

It is both the job of the Doctor and the Practice Manager to actively find, recruit, hire, train, and retain the best practice staff for improved patient experience and to help grow practice profitability consistently.

To Get What You Want, You Must Help Others, Get What They Want

What about a wage increase request, given that this is one of the highest reasons for turnover?

It is very important to note that wage increase discussions are not the time for a performance review or appraisal. Any such issues or discussions should have already occurred, long before now. Ideally, your discussion is based upon a percentage of increase if a prior review was positive.

We believe in Doctors Social Media Practice Development and Consulting that each job within your practice should already have a wage increase guideline based on position, annual revenue growth, and employee performance evaluation. Wage increases should always be based on the financial health of your practice and how individual employees contributed directly or indirectly to the practice profitability.

The longer the tenure, the better the work performance should be. This, in turn, improves workflow, the speed of delivery, and quality of patient care. Other factors relate to product up-sells, the dollar value of sales per transaction, and consultation closure average for leads handled which in turn raise practice profitability.

When a staff members request a raise in wages, several factors must be reviewed and taken into consideration:

Recap for Raise Request

Tenure:

How long has the staff member been with your practice?

Performance:

How have they performed by their job description?

Attendance:

The number of days absent from work or tardy beyond ten minutes.

Importance:

How vital is the service they perform in your practice?

Cost:

What is the cost to find, hire and train someone new?

When you have a discussion, it is important to be prepared. You should have all the necessary information and facts at your disposal:

Job description
Attendance record
Figures that indicate the affordability of granting such an increase
How they get along with their peers
How much patient interaction do they have daily