If your medical practice finds it challenging to maintain sufficient staff to care for your patient population, you’re not alone. Many healthcare organizations have been grappling with the issue of how to fix staffing shortages in healthcare.

Since the global coronavirus pandemic began affecting the healthcare industry in the United States in 2020, doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers have quit their jobs to avoid burnout, as they sought to reduce stress, prevent depression, and protect themselves from being infected while so many of their colleagues fell ill.

According to a report examining staffing shortages in the medical industry from Definitive Healthcare, 145,213 healthcare professionals quit their jobs by the end of 2022. In many cases, healthcare providers leaving the profession had been working directly with disabled and elderly people during the devastating infections and deaths caused by COVID-19. Industry analysts refer to physicians and other healthcare employees exiting the profession in droves as “The Great Resignation.”

Definitive Healthcare noted that 71,309 physicians, 34,834 nurse practitioners and 13,714 physician assistants quit during the pandemic between 2021 to 2022.

To date, approximately 20% of healthcare workers have exited the medical industry since the dawn of the pandemic, according to Physicians Practice. About 18% of these professionals quit, 12% were laid off, and 31% reported that they had thought seriously about resigning from their jobs. Meanwhile, you may have to budget as much as a yearly salary to successfully find, recruit and hire a replacement healthcare worker who quit.

As a result, practice’s and hospitals faced critical healthcare staffing challenges. A critical shortage indicates that the healthcare organization has run out of options to make up for staffing shortfalls and was forced to activate its contingency staffing plans. 

These staffing shortages clearly are bad for operations. They can also diminish your capability to provide continuity of care to your patients, leading to growing dissatisfaction among them and your medical team.

Factors Contributing to Burnout and Resignations

Healthcare staffing shortages are not only a result of external challenges but also internal factors that affect the morale and well-being of your staff. Understanding what drives burnout and resignations is key to preventing further losses in your workforce and keeping your practice operational.

Practices face staffing shortages for several reasons, including:

• Insufficient medical workers: The growing population of aging and retired individuals requires more care than available healthcare workers can provide.
• Challenges recruiting for rural areas: It can be difficult to attract healthcare professionals to work in more remote regions.
• Limited education and training opportunities: There may be fewer resources for healthcare professionals to advance their skills, leading to fewer qualified workers.
• Mental health issues caused by job stress: Increased pressure on the job leads to healthcare workers leaving the profession to prioritize their mental health.
• Mandatory overtime and unpredictable schedules: Healthcare professionals are often required to work excessive hours, leading to exhaustion and burnout.
• Lack of respect from management: When staff feel disrespected by leadership, it can push them to seek employment elsewhere.
• Limited opportunities for advancement: When healthcare workers feel stuck with no room for career growth, they may leave clinical roles for opportunities in other fields.
• Work-related stress: High levels of stress, especially when healthcare workers feel the organization prioritizes profits over patient health, can lead to burnout and resignations.

To retain your staff and reduce the risk of burnout, it’s crucial to address these factors head-on. By fostering a supportive work environment and offering opportunities for growth, healthcare practices can build a more resilient workforce and minimize turnover.

Strategies to Combat Staffing Shortages in Healthcare

With factors in mind, here are some tips to help you address your organization’s challenges with staffing shortages:

Review your compensation and benefits offerings

Healthcare workers deserve a competitive salary, insurance, and good retirement plans. When they don’t feel they are being treated fairly, your staff may feel discouraged and begin experiencing burnout to the point that they suddenly quit. Creyos notes that acknowledging the value your team brings to the organization through better compensation can help with employee retention.

Automated tasks

You’ll want to streamline your operations by switching to automation, reducing your staff’s manual workload. For example, software can provide automated coding recommendations according to details of the patient’s encounter. With specialty-specific code options loaded into the system, it’s easier and faster for your team to find the most relevant code. As you avoid manual coding, the error rate decreases. A limited staff of coders working with medical coding suggestions from software will boost accuracy and maintain your established productivity statistics.

Automation can also help you boost efficiency at the medical reception desk, such as by allowing your employees to quickly check a patient’s eligibility before their appointment. 

Another example of deploying automation to address staffing shortages is saving time by using the system to immediately pull claim status information from sources such as EDI 277 Health Care Claim Status Response, and Electronic Remittance Advice (ERA) 835 files.

These examples and more make healthcare workers lives easier when doing their jobs.

Prioritize preventative care

With a healthier patient population, the workload of your staff will decrease. For example, scheduling regular checkups and reminding patients to stay current on their vaccinations can greatly improve their quality of life. 

You may also refer patients to nutritionists and exercise specialists to help them develop the tools they need to lead a healthier lifestyle.

Outsource staff when possible

Outsourcing staff where possible can help ease operational strain. If you’re finding it difficult to retain in-house staff, consider outsourcing roles in the back office, such as customer service, support staff, and billing departments. With third-party support, you’ll reduce internal administrative costs and relieve pressure on your current team.

Another way to alleviate burnout in healthcare professionals is by outsourcing billing and claims activities through an RCM team. These experts can handle tasks like verifying insurance, adjudicating claims, and managing denials. This approach ensures that staffing shortages won’t slow down your office’s revenue flow, even when patient loads increase.

Streamlined tasks

Ideally, you will use an integrated software solution to ease staffers’ burdens in their administrative and clinical processes. Simplifying tasks such as scheduling, patient intake and documentation with software gives you more time to focus on the patients in front of you.

Telemedicine to expand provider reach

Since the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, more patients have become accustomed to scheduling remote telehealth visits with their providers, to avoid risking infection through in-person encounters at medical facilities. 

When you integrate telemedicine capabilities with your EHR, you can do more with reduced staff. Instead of overwhelming your team with higher patient volumes coming through your doors, you can still provide services amid staffing shortages. In rural areas where practices struggle to keep up with demand because of a diminished medical labor pool, telemedicine can help you connect more effectively with distant patients.

Interested in learning more? Let us know below.