How to recruit and hire for your new medical practice

If your medical training didn’t include courses on recruiting or managing employees, don’t panic. This article lays out everything you need to know about medical recruitment, as well as best practices for hiring and retaining highly qualified medical staff for your new practice. 

There are 3 components to building a medical practice dream team: recruiting, hiring, and retaining. This article will:

Recruiting, hiring, and retaining excellent medical and administrative staff is critical to the long-term success of your practice. As you develop your medical practice business model and business plan, keep in mind that your staff will contribute to the level of care you can provide, as well as your overall efficiency — so make every effort to hire qualified candidates. Highly qualified and competent physicians and other medical professionals are likely to be well-versed in the latest medical advancements, technologies, and best practices. And they can help you streamline processes, reduce errors, and optimize workflow, resulting in improved productivity and operational efficiency. 

Recruiting is the process of actively seeking and attracting qualified individuals to apply for open positions. The goal is to assemble a talent pool from which to select people who align with your practice’s goals, values, and culture. Plan to dedicate the resources necessary to locate individuals who possess the skills, qualifications, and experience to meet your practice’s needs and maintain a competitive edge.

Consider these tips and medical professional, administrative staff, and physician recruitment best practices. 

After you’ve recruited people to apply for open positions, it’s time to start the hiring process. 

During this phase, you’ll review applications, evaluate resumes, conduct initial interviews, and assess candidate qualifications against the job requirements.

After the initial screening, you’ll typically invite selected candidates for a second interview to assess in-depth their skills, knowledge, experience, and cultural fit. Once the interview process is complete, you’ll decide which candidate is the most suitable and extend a written offer. The final phase of hiring involves reference checks, background checks, and negotiation of the terms of employment and compensation.

Follow these these tips and best practices to hire medical staff for your practice:

Hiring the right medical staff for your practice will be an ongoing process. Continuously evaluate and refine your hiring strategies based on your practice needs and the evolving healthcare landscape. By prioritizing qualifications, cultural fit, soft skills, and diversity, you can build a strong and cohesive team that is committed to excellent patient care and success. 

Employee turnover can be costly for medical practices. The process of recruiting, hiring, and training new staff members requires time, effort, and financial resources. So once you have a good team in place, it’s important to foster a workplace environment that people don’t want to leave. 

To retain medical staff at your practice, consider using the following strategies.

By implementing these staff retention strategies, you can create an environment that attracts and retains top medical talent, fosters employee satisfaction and engagement, and ultimately enhances patient care.

The number of staff you’ll need to run your medical practice depends on your practice size, services, and patient volume, as well as the specific roles and responsibilities you need to support your operations.

Here are some key staff positions commonly found in most medical practices:

Other physicians: The number of physicians you need to hire depends on your patient population, services, and desired physician-to-patient ratio. Also consider appointment demand, case complexity, and any specific specialties or subspecialties you might require.

Practice manager: A practice manager oversees the day-to-day operations of your entire medical practice. Their duties can include patient scheduling, billing and insurance matters, inventory management, vendor relationships, regulatory compliance, and staff supervision. 

Nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs): NPs and PAs can play a vital role in supporting physicians, especially in primary care settings. Depending on patient volume and the scope of services, you may consider hiring NPs and PAs to expand your provider capacity and enhance patient access to care.

Nursing and other clinical staff: Clinical staff, including registered nurses (RNs), licensed practical nurses (LPNs), and medical assistants (MAs), are essential to patient care, treatment administration, and clinical tasks. LPNs and MAs typically have less training and a narrower scope of practice than RNs, so many practices use them for initial patient assessments and use RNs for more advanced tasks, such as phone triage or patient education. Your target number of nursing staff will depend on your patient volume, case complexity, and services.

Administrative staff: Your administrative team includes your receptionist or front desk staff who manage patient intake, schedule appointments, answer phone calls, and collect insurance or payment information. The number of front desk staff required will depend on your practice size, patient volume, and administrative efficiency.

Billing and coding staff: Medical billing and coding staff ensure accurate and timely insurance claim processing and financial management. However, a modern EHR can simplify billing and reduce the number of staff you need to handle this business-critical function. 

Support staff: You may require additional support staff, such as medical transcriptionists, medical records specialists, laboratory technicians, or imaging technicians. Assess the specific services you offer and the corresponding staffing requirements for each.

Anesthesiology staff: If you plan to conduct surgical procedures, you will need to hire anesthesiology staff, such as an anesthesiologist or a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA), as well as respiratory therapists and perioperative nurses who are experienced in providing intraoperative and postoperative care. 

Translation support: If you expect a significant percentage of your patient population to speak a language other than English, consider hiring bilingual staff or contracting with translation services to ensure that you are able to effectively communicate with your patients. 

IT support: Compare the costs of in-house versus outsourced IT services to ensure your team has support to manage your EHR and associated IT needs.

Environmental/housekeeping services: Maintaining a clean and sanitary facility takes a lot of work, so be prepared to hire a cleaning service for daily cleaning and sterilization, and to contract with companies who do biohazardous waste and sharps container disposal. When hiring a cleaning service, consider its healthcare experience, understanding of infection control practices, adherence to regulations, and reputation.

Marketing services: Marketing is essential for medical practices to attract and retain patients. A company can help you develop and optimize your website; implement search engine optimization (SEO), paid advertising, and social media campaigns; and manage your reputation. 

When developing your medical practice business model and business plan, consider which of these roles you need to hire initially and which you can add as your practice grows. Part of physician recruitment best practices is knowing which roles to hire at what time.

Depending on your speciality and the services, you may need to hire additionally for specific roles: