Healthcare Systems Struggling to Balance Provider Shortage with Low Budgets

Sep 06, 2022

For years, healthcare facilities have struggled to fill open positions due to the provider shortage. Then, during the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals directed funds towards treating the influx of patients, despite no longer receiving money from the surgeries and procedures that took a backseat during the pandemic. Now, without government relief and the omicron patient influx, healthcare facilities are faced with a shortage of both providers and funds. So what does this mean for the current state of healthcare?

Job Cuts, Despite a Lack of Providers

“The pandemic has intensified a long-running health care worker shortage that has hit especially hard in large, rural states like Montana, which have few candidates to replace workers who depart. Expensive stopgaps — including traveling nurses — caused hospitals’ costs to rise. Staffing shortages have also left patients with longer waits for treatment or fewer providers to care for them.”

In a recent article from Kaiser Health News, health systems in California, Orgeon, New York, Mississippi, and Montana reported laying off workers and downscaling services in the summer of 2022. The combination of low surgery volumes and increased payroll has left hospitals with the difficult decision of laying off workers despite still needing providers to serve their communities.

“Bozeman Health Chief Financial Officer Brad Ludford said the system went from spending less than $100,000 a month on short-term workers before the pandemic to $1.2 million a week last fall. That number is now closer to $1.4 million a month. Overall, the system’s labor costs are roughly $20 million a month, an increase of about 12% compared with this time last year.”

Finding New, Cost-Effective Staffing Options

Dependency on contracted or travel-based providers has had one of the biggest impacts on hospital budgets. As a result, these represent the positions facing the most layoffs. Now, hospitals are looking for a budget-friendly way to find permanent hires to meet healthcare demands.

"It’s not just about recruiting — you can get anybody in the door for $20,000 bonuses, but how are you going to keep them there for 10 or 20 years?”

Hospitals need a recruiting solution that addresses one of their most costly problems: employee turnover. Thus, recruiting must be approached from a quality over quantity basis. 

While most recruiting firms set out to match a CV to job requirements, recruiters should add cultural and lifestyle screening into the interview mix. At The Inline Group, recruiters dive deeper with providers to create job matches that generate long-term employment. On every screening call, our recruiters inquire about community preferences, lifestyle, familial preferences and more. As a result, our clients have more confidence in the candidates we submit for interviews. But don’t just take our word for it. Here’s what our client, Caregiver, Inc. had to say:

“Inline Group has taken the time to get to know our organizational culture as well as the expectations we have for our team and have integrated them into their vetting process. Every candidate they send me understands the role as well as the expectations that come with our roles."

Inline Group has been a true hiring partner with our organization and helped us expand our IDD program across the state of Texas. We were needing to grow fast, and they were able to deliver candidates in several areas around the state quickly. They have excellent communication and allow transparency into their process to make the partnership as easy as possible. I highly recommend Inline Group to any organization looking to expand their workforce or fill challenging roles with a true hiring partner.”

Ready to transition your hiring from reactive to proactive? Contact a member of our team today and learn more about Inline’s unique, effective hiring platform!

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