The low cost of personnel turnover is one benefit of outsourcing revenue cycle management healthcare. Compressed revenue in the healthcare business is made worse by high personnel turnover costs. The revenue picture for healthcare institutions and medical practices is unsettling.They cope with rising expenditures that now include COVID-19 pandemic-related charges like supplemental personal protective equipment and supplemental sanitizing procedures.

Elective operations, routine care, and preventative procedures continue to see lower patient numbers than they did prior to the pandemic.Additionally, patients who are financially impacted by the epidemic frequently find it difficult to pay for their share of the care, which disrupts medical billing collections.

The bottom line suffers greatly since income is being squeezed at both ends. According to an AMA poll, COVID-19 caused medical offices to see an average 32% decline in revenue last summer.According to another study, hospital operating margins fell by 16.6% and by 55.6% in 2020, respectively, with and without the assistance that the CARES Act gave.

The high incidence of staff turnover, which has a significant negative impact on the profitability of movies about healthcare, is one specific expense-side factor aggravating this downward revenue trend.

Effects of the Great Resignation on Employment in General

There are numerous help needed signs, and employment boards constantly publish new openings. Is it surprising that so many workers are quitting their current positions? It's simpler than ever for workers to give notice, whether it's for more compensation, better hours, or more perks. That amounts to over four million individuals abandoning their employment each of those months on average.

The Disturbing Staff Turnover Rate in Healthcare

Nearly 13% of the 19 million workers who left their occupations during that five-month period worked in the healthcare industry. Only three sectors contributed more than healthcare in terms of percentage: food services, expert business services, and retail commerce.

Additionally, as of August 2021, the Healthcare and Social Assistance sector has a 3.9% unemployment rate compared to a 5.2% national average. The Hospital subsector, where the unemployment rate was 2.7%, had an even bigger disparity.

Of course, the pandemic hasn't caused a new phenomena in terms of workforce turnover. Hospitals and medical offices have been battling this problem for many years. A Medical Group Management Association report from 2018 (MGMA). demonstrated that primary care single specialities have high rates of employee turnover, particularly in the areas of medical billing and healthcare revenue cycle solutions.

The Economic Impact of Medical Staff Turnover

Experts have attempted to calculate the financial effect of healthcare personnel turnover throughout the years. In a large medical center's review of turnover costs from 2004, it was estimated that it represented a loss of greater than 5% of the whole yearly operating budget at the very least.

The expense to replace a member of management might be as high as five times their annual compensation, the MGMA stated in 2018. Even a low-level staff replacement might cost up to 25% of their annual compensation.

A research that was quoted more recently by a healthcare placement agency projected that a healthcare facility with 300 employees and a 10% yearly staff turnover rate would incur costs of almost $2 million.

That translates to an even greater bite out of the bottom line for practices or organizations with employee turnover rates close to the 19.5% average for hospitals in 2020.

The following categories describe the expenses associated with employee turnover:

Direct Staff Turnover Costs

Whether a nurse, medical assistant, manager of medical billing, or somebody who inputs data into a system can leaves a medical practice or a healthcare organization, the company bears many expenses directly associated with their departure and replacement:

• Termination :This might involve staff time spent on tasks including holding a departure interview, gathering property or equipment that was provided by the employer, and modifying the pay and benefit systems. Even more staff time will be needed if the exit was forced.

• Recruitment : Finding a suitable successor entails creating a new job ad, locating qualified individuals, and conducting interviews with them.

• Onboarding: Background checks, drug testing, and other HR procedures must be finished when a candidate is chosen.

• Orientation : All policies, practices, and systems relevant to new hires' duties must be covered in training. Training new employees to use an electronic health record can be costly in terms of additional expenses and the time other employees must devote to the task.

• Temp pay or overtime for employees: In order to handle the increased burden during the termination of an employee and the hiring, onboarding, and training of their successor, either other staff members must put in more hours or a temporary employee must be hired.

Tangible Staff Turnover Costs

Additionally, a number of secondary expenses linked to personnel turnover further disrupt medical practices' and health institutions' ability to manage their revenue cycles:

• Continuity or quality of care lapses
• damaged reputations
• higher incidence of accidents
• Higher absenteeism and worker discontent
• decreased productivity
• loss of process knowledge and experience
• missed chances to get new patients or strengthen connections with current ones

8 Strategies for Pandemic Staffing Issues:

A wonderful piece regarding the growing staffing dilemma, specifically as it relates to COVID's consequences, was written by Chris Harrop at MGMA. Nearly three-quarters of medical practices cite personnel as their top concern going into 2022, according to Chris, among worker quarantines, resignations, and vaccination refusals.This represents almost 75% of all medical practices.

In addition to having a detrimental impact on a practice's internal effectiveness, staffing problems can require clinics to turn away patients because they are unable to offer care for them.

Chris provides eight detailed methods for handling practice personnel shortages.

• increasing the efficiency of your remaining suppliers and personnel.
• When it's feasible, change the operation hours and patient access, and offer cross-coverage.
• Limit services.
• Reorganize departments, rethink positions, and cross-train employees.
• Automate and outsource.
• Service redesign and when possible, centralization
• Recommit to Telehealth.
• Expand your employment and recruitment efforts.
  

It’s time to outsource medical billing to streamline your medical practice and to maximize your reimbursements efficiently.