Overcoming Challenges in Physician Onboarding

Starting a new job as a physician can be overwhelming and exciting, all at the same time. The physician onboarding process can help in familiarizing and orienting providers into the new position. However, not all hospitals or health care centers have invested in the right processes/technology to smoothen the transition. But that's changing fast - with more healthcare providers leaning on the power of workflows.

When asked for feedback about their onboarding experience, physicians report various experiences, ranging from feeling confused and not supported to being helpfully guided through online processes and structured activities. Employers now see a clear link between a good onboarding experience and a happy physician.

A lot of effort goes into recruiting the best physicians, and onboarding them takes more than 90 days. Onboarding delays can cost over $200,000 every 30 days. Siloed onboarding processes can make them feel uncomfortable, leading to a turnover. The cost of a physician leaving within the first year can go up to $1M.

Effective onboarding enables improved collaboration and faster time to productivity for new physicians, leading to reduced overall recruitment and turnover costs. Hospitals need a solution that allows physicians easy access to information, documentation, and support.

In this blog, we will explore a solution that reduces onboarding time and improves efficiency. Let's begin by understanding the complete process of onboarding a physician.

The onboarding process - at a glance

The process typically includes medical credentialing, a physical, community introductions, meetings with department heads and medical executives, sessions with the marketing department, and facility tours.

Lengthy procedures, such as credentialing, which takes over three months, require efforts from multiple departments and external entities. Different steps in onboarding require the involvement of people from various departments. This multi-departmental collaboration can get inhibited due to manual, inefficient processes. For instance, the manual process of obtaining and validating a physician's documents related to medical education, criminal or civil legal actions, internship, and residency, is inefficient. Since these are manual processes, they can become long and excruciating with poor coordination, leading to increased expenditure and physician turnover.

The onboarding process needs reinvention to give physicians a consumer-like experience.

How to reduce delays and minimize turnover

Healthcare providers must consider using a single platform for physicians that spans onboarding and other lifecycle events. A single service delivery platform such as ServiceNow can enable them to minimize manual tasks, reduce delays, improve efficiency, and allow physicians to focus on patient care. Let's explore how ServiceNow can help address issues with delays and turnover.

To reduce delays – automate and orchestrate work

All complex processes and tasks can be automated and orchestrated in the platform by the medical staffing department. Here is a use case of how automation can speed up the onboarding process:

The new physician quickly uploads documents for credentialing and licensing.
The document upload action triggers and workflow that automatically allocates tasks to the team responsible for verifying the documents.
Automation also connects other departments like legal, IT, and finance; or even external entities such as the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), state licensing boards, and commercial credentialing applications.
The entire process is tracked and provides complete visibility to the physician.
Notifications and reminders are sent for appropriate actions.

With automated workflows in place, the chaos is replaced by clarity and improved timelines.

To minimize turnover – deliver consumer-like experience during and beyond onboarding

By integrating a single platform accessible to new and existing physicians, you can enable a consumer-like service experience for everyone. New physicians can use the platform to seek personalized, step-by-step guidance during the onboarding process. If they are stuck on any task, they can seek online support to avoid delays in completing tasks.

Existing physicians can seek assistance regarding continuing education, ongoing training, and license revalidation. Just like onboarding, these processes can be easily automated and orchestrated with a service delivery platform. These effective self-service options cause little to no disruption during routine tasks.

By creating seamless lifecycle events for physicians, you can reduce the turnover rate for your hospital.

Get started with automation

Physician onboarding is a long, costly, and complicated process. Medical staffing leaders now recognize that they can save with every single hire they make. Automating manual onboarding tasks frees up the physician and improves the quality of patient engagement. You can leverage these benefits with the right physician onboarding experience.

You can start by reducing the number of manual tasks and exploring ways to collaborate better. Understand your onboarding processes and figure out how you can automate and orchestrate these tasks across multiple departments and external agencies.

Choose INRY as your ServiceNow implementation partner to leverage service delivery platforms. We work closely to understand the nuances in your onboarding processes, and with our expertise, we help you minimize onboarding costs and deliver a consumer-like physician onboarding experience.

Feel free to reach out to us for a quick consultation with one of our onboarding experts.