The administrative burden on healthcare has reached a tipping point. Healthcare systems and their providers are increasingly burdened with administrative tasks that take time away from patient care. Siloed, paper-based approaches increase operational inefficiencies and the potential for errors, delays, and regulatory violations. This is especially concerning given the looming threat of provider shortages and rising levels of patient acuity.
As competition for scarce suppliers intensifies, a key management function that healthcare organizations can improve is to improve the supplier onboarding process by eliminating data duplication and manual communication.
Hiring and contracting, certifying and locating suppliers for an organization can take weeks or months, and if any steps are prolonged, there is a huge cost.Lost revenue in the form of delayed patient care and missed reimbursements – medical groups lost Average $10,000 Every day there are delays in supplier onboarding.
Delays and inefficiencies can also inconvenience suppliers and erode their trust. Using comprehensive provider onboarding technology, combined with a unified onboarding program, ensures new clinical staff are up and running quickly, while also delivering a positive experience that promotes short- and long-term retention.
Centralize data to better serve clinicians
Once an organization’s internal and external recruiters find top physician and nursing talent, the main challenge in preparing providers quickly and efficiently to care for patients safely stems from the manual and decentralized nature of onboarding.
A certifying person or credential verification organization spends a significant amount of time acquiring and validating a clinician’s credentials related to their medical education, criminal or civil litigation, internships, and residency, and then sharing that information with human resources. Often at the same time, provider registration professionals are looking for and tracking the same data. When each department has its own ad hoc system, inefficiencies abound.
A slow, uncoordinated onboarding process can also leave a less-than-ideal first impression, which can negatively impact vendor loyalty to the organization.The consequences of doing so are costly — the flow of primary care physicians costs the U.S. healthcare system nearly $1 billion annually.
Merge process and technology to speed up onboarding
While administrative tasks in patient care are unavoidable, they don’t have to be paper-based or manual, especially in the recruiting process. Healthcare organizations can make the provider experience easier by eliminating repetitive application tasks, resulting in early satisfaction among hired or contracted providers. Developing a formal, centralized workflow is critical as it ensures that only the most qualified providers join the organization and improves providers’ ability to see patients as quickly as possible.
Optimizing the onboarding process starts with eliminating silos so that recruiting, HR, credentialing, provider enrollment, and medical staff leaders work together to prepare providers for success. To enable a team-based approach, organizations need a centralized data source. Without a single source of truth, organizations risk redundancy and vendors get frustrated when multiple departments request the same information.
An end-to-end provider data management solution ensures that no one enters the same provider data twice and that all authorized individuals have real-time information at every step of the onboarding process. Transparency and data sharing across sectors can also minimize the chance of being overlooked or forgotten.
Organizations can create a formal healthcare provider onboarding checklist in their provider data management system to streamline processes and securely share data and documents. As suppliers onboard and adapt to their new roles quickly and efficiently, organizations can capitalize on opportunities for improvement through feedback. For example, post-employment surveys and regular, ongoing follow-up visits to new suppliers ensure they are adjusting to the work environment and feeling comfortable in their new roles.
Combining onboarding best practices with smart technologies such as provider certification software and provider directory solutions further improves the provider onboarding process and overall clinician satisfaction. Organizations can automatically collect and digitally store certification data and documents, including checking for expired or suspended medical licenses.
Additionally, an end-to-end provider data management solution can facilitate the entire process from initial provider onboarding to scheduling patient appointments. Once the data is captured and kept in a file, updates are automatically refreshed for authentication, privileges, and registration — and many other departments and entities that need this information.
Improve supplier experience
The most effective way for healthcare leaders to support providers is to ease the operational and administrative burden, which should start with the onboarding process. An efficient onboarding process sets a positive tone and convinces new employees that they made the right decision.
Optimized processes and end-to-end vendor data management technologies enable clinicians to deliver patient care safely and efficiently, resulting in improved patient outcomes, reduced staff stress, and increased job satisfaction.
Image credit: Ridofranz, Getty Images
