Thanks to the growing nationwide clinician shortage, many hospitals now rely on contingent staff to maintain their patient care standards. However, as a contingent workforce grows in size, the potential risk to a hospital can also increase. For example, a contingent clinician with outdated credentials could expose a facility to substantial fines, penalties, and even lawsuits. That’s why it is vital for a healthcare facility to adopt best practices in risk management. Fortunately, there are several ways a healthcare system can minimize these contingent workforce risks.
Talk to the experts: A managed service provider or an MSP can help reduce the risk of hiring temporary clinicians. With an MSP managing the entire contingent workforce, hospitals gain guidance and support from a team of experts who are skilled in risk mitigation. In fact, the Quality Assurance Team at Medical Solutions Plus gathers and monitors all ongoing compliance documentation on behalf of their Hospital Clients to ensure that each contingent clinician is safe, qualified, and certified throughout the contract. With the help of an MSP, hospital leaders can not only be confident their contingent workforce will deliver exceptional patient care, but they can also save valuable time and resources.
Establish a rigorous screening process: In regard to hiring contingent workers, risk can lurk in several areas. For example, there are a number of state fair employment laws to ensure that criminal background checks aren’t completed too early in the recruitment process. These laws can pose a potential challenge to major hospitals operating across state lines with a large contingent workforce. As such, it’s important for hiring managers to stay current on fair hiring practices. Moreover, inconsistent policies, like giving preferential treatment to a few candidates, could spark discrimination lawsuits. With a consistent screening process in place, hospital hiring managers can safeguard that all candidates are treated fairly and screened equally.
Standardize compliance requirements with vendors: Managing a growing contingent labor program has become increasingly difficult, especially when it comes to ensuring a contingent clinician is credentialed. While it’s not uncommon for hospitals to use more than one staffing agency to fill their needs, hospital hiring managers should be aware that not all agencies follow the same regulatory protocols. To compound the problem, some hospitals might even have more than one department responsible for tracking compliance standards. With such a fragmented process, it can be easy for compliance documents to slip through the cracks and expose a hospital to unnecessary risk.
Fortunately, hospital leaders can improve their compliance management with an MSP partner. In fact, Medical Solutions Plus has a team of professionals who will verify all compliance documentation and communicate with staffing affiliate vendors to ensure the suppliers meet a standardized set of requirements.
Utilize innovative technology: Certain MSPs, like Medical Solutions Plus, further take the guesswork out of compliance tracking with certain strategic tools. For example, the MSP Portal, a web-based technology platform, provides real-time visibility into a contingent workforce with instant access to accurate clinician profiles, headcounts, and contract start and end dates. All data is stored in one place and updated by the Medical Solutions Plus team. With the right technology, hospital administrators can take a proactive approach to risk management and, as a result, be prepared for a Joint Commission visit.
As the use of contingent labor in healthcare increases so too does a hospital’s potential risk. Hospital leaders can protect their facility’s reputation by partnering with an MSP.
Find out how Medical Solutions Plus can help your hospital mitigate the risk of hiring contingent workers today.
