Healthcare Staffing Services: An Ever-Expanding Universe

What does it take to be a reliable provider of healthcare staffing services? The answer to that question in the modern era is quite different from the answer given just a few decades ago. So much has changed in healthcare since the turn of the century that the staffing paradigm is exceedingly difficult to quantify.

It used to be that healthcare staffing was simple. Just supply clinical, allied, and support staff. Today’s healthcare staffing involves a whole lot more. While recruiting and hiring are still in play, staffing agencies have a lot more to deal with. They are involved in supplemental staffing, locum tenens staffing, managed service provider (MSP) programs, vendor management systems, and a whole lot more.

Locum Tenens Staffing

One of the biggest areas of growth over the last 10 to 15 years has been that of locum tenens staffing. Healthcare staffing services these days almost have to offer locum tenens by default. Otherwise, they are at a decided disadvantage. The reality is that locum tenens staffing has become a mainstay of American healthcare.

According to a 2017 report from Merritt Hawkins, some 96% of all healthcare facilities utilized locum tenens staffing at least once during 2016. That was up from 90% just three years earlier. The fact is that any staffing agency not involved in locum tenens recruiting is leaving a huge revenue stream on the table.

Healthcare Management Services

Hand-in-hand with locum tenens staffing are healthcare management services designed to eliminate staffing hassles as much as possible. Agencies that offer such services become partners with healthcare facilities rather than just serving as recruiters. Agency and facility work together to manage all aspects of staffing, from recruiting new hires to managing the existing workforce.

Healthcare management services are very similar to the services provided by MSP’s in the IT sector. An IT managed service provider is a company that offers management of IT infrastructure and end-user systems, usually from a remote location. Likewise, healthcare staffing agencies can help manage client staffing remotely.

It is all made possible through vendor management software. Normally this is cloud-based software that provides a connection point between staffing agency and client. It offers a range of tools applicable on both ends of the partnership, tools that leverage the latest technologies for efficiency and productivity.

Licensing and Credentialing

The ever-expanding universe of healthcare staffing services even includes assistance with licensing and credentialing. As you may know, licensing regulations can vary from one state to the next. Credentialing can vary from one facility to the next. As such, both licensing and credentialing pose problems for healthcare facilities bringing on locum tenens providers.

Relieving facilities of this responsibility is part and parcel with running a modern staffing agency. Agencies choose to handle licensing and credentialing on behalf of hiring facilities. They also do so as a benefit to locum tenens recruits. If the clinician doesn’t have to worry about licensing and credentialing himself, he or she’s more likely to work with a staffing agency willing to do it for them.

Licensing and credentialing services have become such a vital incentive for recruiting that many staffing agencies now make them part of their marketing efforts. And it works. Assisting with licensing and credentialing is just one of the many things staffing agencies do to stay ahead.

It should be clear that healthcare staffing services have changed over the years. What agencies do today as a matter of course exceeds anything agencies would have done in the past. It is all part of the ever-expanding universe that makes healthcare staffing such an interesting field to be in.