In preparing for our session, Training AR Staff to Contribute in the First Week on April 16, 2019, at 11:00 AM (PT), I received a question from one of our readers … let’s call her Beth … facing a pretty common hiring problem. Her company has more work than they can do with the employees they have, but not quite enough to justify another full-time position. She writes:
We currently need 2.5 billing staff, but hiring a part-time billing person is difficult to find. We will soon need to bring them to full-time but I don't want to pay a full-time person for a part-time job, and I don't want to hire a part-time person who is not interested in a full-time job and then we have to lay off the PT person, hire a FT EE and retrain. What is the best solution?
Well, Identity-Protected Beth, this is a good question, and we hear it often. I think you have three primary options:
Hire a Full-Time DME Associate
I know you said hiring a full-time position is something you want to avoid, but hear me out. Almost every supplier I work with has meaningful work that is not getting done because there simply isn’t time. Much of this work could be accomplished through short-term projects. Projects might include:
You get the idea.
If your special projects require expertise in excess of a new associate’s ability, reassign high-volume, repetitive work bogging down your tenured staffers to the new person so the heavy-hitters can concentrate on the meaningful stuff.
By the time the projects are done, you may be ready for a full-time person. Even if you are not, I wouldn’t worry about a bit of excess capacity. If you hire the right people, you want them to have time to train properly, stay current on new developments, concentrate on their work, go to lunch, enjoy the weekend, and even take a potty break from time to time. In our experience, a little excess capacity is necessary to keep things flowing … pardon the pun … smoothly.
Hiring the right people, as you know, is crucial. Clarity in the job description is imperative. If you want someone who will accept part-time work but eventually wants full-time work, say so and commit to a timeline for when you expect that to happen. A good job description cannot exist unless you are clear on what you want and need. Examples of job ads we have used in the past are here and here.
Minimize the Work Requiring a Part-Time Position
If rounding up isn’t possible, maybe you can round down.
Take a look at the work that requires the part-time hours. Can you automate it? Do without it altogether? Excel is an amazing tool when it comes to automating tasks to reduce labor hours required, but you may also find some time-consuming tasks that your employees perform out of habit, not need. Either way, revisiting current tasks is a good way to create capacity and delay payroll increases.
Outsource the Part-Time Work on a Short-Term Basis
If you find you cannot round down the work load and a full-time person simply isn’t in the budget, consider outsourcing certain tasks on a short-term basis until a full-time hire makes sense. Certain tasks like payment posting, claims transmission, and certain types of denials lend themselves well to outsourcing. Believe it or not, there are outsourcing options that do not require a one-year contract, 7 percent of collections, a pound of flesh, or complete surrender.
So, there are three options that may help you get from here to there. If you have questions, or want to discuss your options, give us a shout.
- Hire a full-time DME associate.
- Minimize the work requiring the part-time position.
- Outsource the part-time work on a short-term basis.
Hire a Full-Time DME Associate
I know you said hiring a full-time position is something you want to avoid, but hear me out. Almost every supplier I work with has meaningful work that is not getting done because there simply isn’t time. Much of this work could be accomplished through short-term projects. Projects might include:
- Handling a backlog of revenue generating tasks like resupply or recertification.
- Catching up on backlogged denials, rejections, held claims, authorizations, etc.
- Writing off uncollectible accounts receivable.
- Scanning paper records for easy access by the entire staff.
You get the idea.
If your special projects require expertise in excess of a new associate’s ability, reassign high-volume, repetitive work bogging down your tenured staffers to the new person so the heavy-hitters can concentrate on the meaningful stuff.
By the time the projects are done, you may be ready for a full-time person. Even if you are not, I wouldn’t worry about a bit of excess capacity. If you hire the right people, you want them to have time to train properly, stay current on new developments, concentrate on their work, go to lunch, enjoy the weekend, and even take a potty break from time to time. In our experience, a little excess capacity is necessary to keep things flowing … pardon the pun … smoothly.
Hiring the right people, as you know, is crucial. Clarity in the job description is imperative. If you want someone who will accept part-time work but eventually wants full-time work, say so and commit to a timeline for when you expect that to happen. A good job description cannot exist unless you are clear on what you want and need. Examples of job ads we have used in the past are here and here.
Minimize the Work Requiring a Part-Time Position
If rounding up isn’t possible, maybe you can round down.
Take a look at the work that requires the part-time hours. Can you automate it? Do without it altogether? Excel is an amazing tool when it comes to automating tasks to reduce labor hours required, but you may also find some time-consuming tasks that your employees perform out of habit, not need. Either way, revisiting current tasks is a good way to create capacity and delay payroll increases.
Outsource the Part-Time Work on a Short-Term Basis
If you find you cannot round down the work load and a full-time person simply isn’t in the budget, consider outsourcing certain tasks on a short-term basis until a full-time hire makes sense. Certain tasks like payment posting, claims transmission, and certain types of denials lend themselves well to outsourcing. Believe it or not, there are outsourcing options that do not require a one-year contract, 7 percent of collections, a pound of flesh, or complete surrender.
So, there are three options that may help you get from here to there. If you have questions, or want to discuss your options, give us a shout.
RSS Feed