Growing a medical practice from a single office or branch is just like any other business industry expansion; you'll need to attend to both the administrative and soft-skill details required of all larger organizations. There are plenty of known pitfalls to avoid, with challenges ranging from hiring to risk management. In this post, we will talk about common challenges an expanding medical practice can face and how to effectively solve those problems.
Hiring the Right People Takes the Right Package
Employee benefits are key to hiring and retaining the right staff for your practice. Establishing a quality benefits package pays off in the long run with better employee retention, lower training and ramp up costs, less office disruption, and a greater level of efficiency with experienced staff. A desirable benefits package will include healthcare insurance (a number one issue for hires), vacation time, life insurance options, training, and career mobility. When people look at job openings and offers, they are actively comparing notes, and more often than not, the highly-skilled talent will gravitate towards more than compensation alone.
A Professional Employer Organization (PEO) can help you tailor competitive benefit packages that make sense for your business and are attractive to your labor market. A PEO provides in-house HR support to help you find the right benefit packages at the lowest cost for your company, as well as assisting with onboarding new employees, and working the back-end cost control.
Managing the Administrative Paperwork Before it Buries Your Office
No one likes filling out forms, but they are a necessary part of running a company. Bringing on employees is a form-heavy activity, and you’ll have to meet federal and state requirements. If paperwork, such as employee tax withholding, is not in order, you can be fined for each violation. Twenty percent of medical offices and companies have only one person managing employee compliance. What happens if that person leaves or gets sick? And if you're managing the paperwork directly, you’re not managing patients. The key is outsourcing HR needs to experts and keeping your focus on your business function. A PEO can work through your needs and set you up with an infrastructure that reduces the cost of non-compliant paperwork.
Managing Risk Before it’s a Liability
Do you have the right risk management for your practice right now? What about when it grows 50 percent in size? Risk management isn’t something that does much good after the fact; you need to prevent and prepare for injury or damage incidents before they happen. A good PEO company can watch out for your liability risks proactively and make sure you stay clear of OSHA violations as well. Your risk vulnerability goes down and your office productivity goes up, boosting your bottom line.
Negotiating Leases for Space and Equipment
When a business is growing, it needs more space and equipment. Sometimes this is temporary and sometimes it’s long-term. There’s a lot of administrative work required to acquire the additional space and equipment necessary for growth. Sometimes, medical practices expand through a short term space and equipment lease, which can eliminate a long-term financial commitment. Other times, expansion takes place through a merger, which also requires considerable administrative commitment. A PEO can help navigate office and equipment needs within a budget, taking the worry off your staff, and matching the resources to your growth rate. Their expertise will help you stay within your budget while solving problems that pop up during expansion.
Avoiding Burnout During Growth
During a high-growth phase, medical offices tend to over-rely on experienced staff to handle administrative duties. Key players can feel as though they are glued to their computers, making it a challenge to avoid employee burnout. Too often, employers miss the critical signs and realize the problem when the person quits. Instead, there should be a purposeful allocation of the workload, with a focus on keeping patient interaction and satisfaction high. PEO experts can provide a third-party neutrality, watching for burnout signs and helping manage productivity levels. The PEO can relieve some of the administrative burden, so staff retention does not become an additional issue during a time of growth.
You don’t need to struggle with medical practice growth on your own. Assistance from a PEO can make a big difference in your success. Experts can give your office the key guidance needed when change matters the most in your practice.
