As hospitals embrace ambulatory strategies, moving more services to outpatient settings, a new approach to Human Resources (HR) is needed to support the unique needs of these more specialized ventures. A new white paper from MedHQ titled, “Optimize Performance by Rethinking Hospital HR for Ambulatory Ventures,” suggests that in many cases, the best solution is an outsourced HR resource that can match the speed, efficiency, and specialization that are central to ambulatory business models.
“When you’re working within a hospital, the mission is to handle the whole variety and complexity of all acute and critical care needs,” says Tom Jacobs, CEO and Co-Founder of MedHQ, the only HR services company that specializes in the ASC market. “Hospitals have to handle the full gamut of services so, when it comes to HR, the book of the policies and procedures is a big thick binder, maybe even multiple binders. But in an ambulatory environment, you’re carving out one piece of the pie and putting it into a separate facility, managed separately. Since the complexity is less, the optimal HR support is going to be different as well.”
The white paper explores efficiencies hospitals can gain in three critical areas by outsourcing HR. The first area, benefits design and administration, ensures a competitive, yet affordable benefits package for your ASC or other ambulatory venture. Outsourced HR specialists leverage broad resources to make sure benefits are perceived as at least as good as hospital benefits – key in a marketplace facing shortages for design for nurses, OR techs and other staff.
“There’s a perception that ASC benefit packages are less robust than hospital packages. That’s simply not the case. An ASC benefits package can be customized and become a selling point,” Jacobs says.
With consolidation among insurance carriers today, hospitals and outsourced HR firms alike are offering the same health insurance programs, and HR outsourcing firms can work with hospital systems’ proprietary insurance entities, as well. In addition, the overhead of outsourced HR firms is much lower, so the actual cost born by the center is lower in the outpatient environment because they’re not sharing the overhead of the big hospital.
“Often, we are able to offer benefits that are as good as hospital plans to attract employees, and at the same time keep costs low and match the program to the smaller environment,” Jacobs concludes.
To read more about optimizing performance by rethinking HR strategies for ambulatory ventures, download the white paper.