Everyone thinks they know what’s best for the healthcare industry. Over the last couple of pandemic years, the healthcare industry has been discussed by politicians, lawmakers, newspapers, your friend’s aunt on Facebook, your neighbor’s podcast, anyone with a laptop, and anyone with a microphone. 

One voice we don’t hear enough from is the professionals in the medical industry themselves.

That’s why we asked over 300 US professionals in the healthcare industry which problems need solving, specifically in regards to onboarding and compliance.

Those who responded deserve a bit of a shout out, not least for taking the time to educate and inform, and you’d be happy to know that other Healthcare professionals share your concerns. Fascinatingly, despite responses from a variety of different states and sectors within healthcare, the answers that were given tend to center around common issues.

For example, Morgan Dzurko, an Operations Leader with several years of experience in the ABA field (applied behavior analysis), helpfully noted several issues.

Echoing that sentiment, Jane Brown, the Chief Compliance Officer at Avesis LLC, gave her analysis.

[If you've been facing the same problems as Morgan and Jane, spending a disproportionate amount of time with compliance and background checks, then Credentially has the answer. Click to see how our features can benefit you and your team!]

As you read on and learn more about the healthcare headaches through the eyes of US healthcare employees, you’ll see striking similarities in the problems they face.

As per the feedback from the American healthcare professionals themselves, here are the top 3 US Healthcare problems:

Thankfully, all of these problems are easily solvable.

Fast & Efficient is an Available Option

“Rome wasn’t built in a day” is a comforting phrase that suggests that great things in life must take time. While it’s a lovely sentiment, automation wasn’t around 1600 years ago to present alternatives. 

Even in more modern times than the Roman age, a common question when implementing processes was “do you want things done quickly, or do you want them done well?”. Since the software revolution in the late 1990s/early 2000s, that question has become null and void. You can have both.

Fast & efficient are not just buzzwords in an aspirin commercial, although they are applicable here considering the headaches they solve. If we start with the amount of time it takes for the average US physician to start work, an average of 6-12 months from hiring and licensing to the start date, this shortcoming is not a subject that is widely discussed outside the medical community.

The repercussions of such a lengthy process are threefold:

1. Patients missing out on care - waiting for new staff to start means too many patients per current practitioner. This leads to staff burnout and malpractice mistakes
2. Millions of dollars of lost revenue - The turnover of RN (Registered Nurses) alone cost the average hospital up to $6.5m, according to an article by RevCycleIntelligence
3. Untrained physicians start practicing too early out of desperation due to staff shortages - This leaves your company in a legally vulnerable position   

The stakes are high!

As well as the clearly damaging effect on patient wellbeing, you can’t afford to take risks with these levels of financial and legal ramifications, all because of unnecessarily long processes. 

Solve Multiple Problems With One Solution

Let’s be honest. Only by drastically reducing onboarding can we start making a real difference to the problems at hand. Shaving a couple of weeks of your candidates’ start dates is like plugging one hole in a slice of Swiss cheese. Credentially’s onboarding and compliance software is proven to reduce candidate starting times from several weeks to a handful of days. 

When Morgan Dzurko gives an example of onboarding headaches, she notes “in order to onboard, [the group of new candidates] need app vaccine history and background checks. Those things don’t come until week 3”.  

If the same process was done with the help of software automation, as is the case with Ison Nursing, for example, the difference in time is night and day. 

When talking about what their process was like before using onboarding and compliance software, their Operations Director said “We need staff quickly, we need to get them out quickly. The longest part was getting them compliant. Pre-Credentially it could take 1 month+ to get a candidate compliant. On average now, it’s probably about 3-4 days.”

Onboarding software enables candidates to simply upload every necessary document on a single dashboard for you to verify and get them compliant quickly. In one go, you can sign off 

• Professional Registration Checks [with an upload]
• References [with real-time reminders so you don’t have to chase]
• Right to work checks [with an upload]
• Security checks [that are integrated with 3rd party authorities]
• Identity and Resumé uploads
• IR35

Having all of these features (and more) on one dashboard removes the need for spreadsheets and manual data entry, making your hiring team more efficient. Suddenly, your patients are better cared for, you’ll save $$$, and you’ll reduce the risk of malpractice issues due to burnout. 

DCA (Dr Care Anywhere) is the perfect example of how these features are beneficial to healthcare companies. When DCA onboarded 127 doctors quickly, we reduced their admin time by 90% and provided cost savings of 67% - and of course, all these doctors needed to be 100% compliant going forward.

The perfect example of multiple problems, one solution.

Your onboarding process will be fast and effective like an aspirin!

Security Checks Made Simple

Although the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges) do national criminal background checks for med school admissions committees, some school policies and state laws have no requirement for such checks. 

Physicians with a criminal record are infinitely more likely to get licensure if they have misdemeanors that date way back, compared to, let’s say, a murder charge from nine months ago. However, the decision is ultimately down to medical schools to pass final judgment. 

Although criminal background checks are strongly recommended, there isn’t one governing body that conducts countrywide, uniform checks. The fact that “most criminal convictions don’t prohibit you from becoming a physician” should be a crime in itself. 

In our responses from US healthcare industry professionals, Jane Brown notes that “timely execution of background and criminal checks, including credentialing” matches Morgan Dzurko’s headache when performing lengthy security checks for onboarding.

To say that the issue is complex would be an understatement, but what isn’t complex is your credentialing team’s access to the information that’s required for licensure. 

With credentialing software, the minute your candidate has their criminal record, clean or not, they can upload that information onto their customer portal with all the other medical licensure and board certification documents you require.

Get Credentialled, Stay Credentialled

For your candidates, uploading your medical license for hiring purposes is as easy as a push of a button. 

For your team, having an omniscient view of all your employees’ medical licenses and specific board certifications is just as easy. 

Brian Finn at Elara Caring, notes "tracking and ensuring credentialling" as key problems he faces day-to-day.

Daily compliance can and should be maintained throughout the year, and not just during the onboarding stage.

With credentially software, effective credentialing doesn’t stop at onboarding, and neither do the ongoing security checks. 

Timely reminders of expiring licenses are sent to employees via their portal page, as are any policy changes, companywide or statewide, that your physicians need to know. 

A year ago, a Florida investigation found that almost a thousand physicians working statewide were practicing without being fully licensed MDs.

The loss of life and inevitable lawsuits that followed could have all been avoided with a comprehensive, integrated solution. 

Training Physicians: We All Have Needs

Frances Showa and Jane Brown both mentioned training materials in their issues that need to be addressed, specifically “Engaging training material“ and “consistent training material”. 

The problem is twofold, the first being a matter of common sense. You wouldn’t get in a car with a driver who doesn’t know how to drive, not knowingly at least. It’s dangerous, there are legal ramifications and it definitely doesn’t inspire confidence that you’ll get a back for your buck (well, you might get a bang). 

The same is true of your physician; candidates won’t feel underprepared when they’re thrust onto the hospital floor if their material is timely, engaging, and specific to their role.

Secondly, the benefit of personal training is directly linked to your onboarding process, in that personal training leads to fewer applicant dropouts. 

Research shows that a personal welcome and training video can drastically help your candidate retention, with improvement rates of up to 82% when candidates themselves enjoy the onboarding process. 

This is another function of onboarding and credentialing software, a fully tailored dashboard that gives you the power to showcase current, specific training videos and questionnaires, as well as notify staff members and applicants of changes to company/State regulations. 

Thank You to Everyone That Responded

You didn’t have to take the time to respond, your lives are busy enough as it is, yet you did. By doing so, you’ve undoubtedly helped fellow healthcare professionals, at the very least by showing that they’re not alone in their frustrations.

It is very telling that you care about your work, you care about your employees, but most of all you care about your patients and you want the industry to be better.

Credentially shares your goal; supporting the industry to better care for doctors, nurses, HR, and compliances workers to better serve patients is why we were formed and what we do.

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