So far 2013 has been great for healthcare staffing and if January is any indication on the growth potential it is going be an awesome year. Every day I hear about more startups entering the healthcare staffing market. Many of these start-ups come from different verticals within staffing, but almost never have healthcare specific staffing experience.  Many times these folks are familiar with great non-healthcare specific staffing software or applicant tracking systems such as Bullhorn, Sendouts or Brightmove and although those systems are great in their own right and work in different verticals, they aren’t a complete solution if you are running a healthcare staffing agency. 

One of the biggest mistakes start-ups make, who are not familiar with healthcare staffing, is choosing a non-healthcare specific applicant tracking system and thus having to create many different systems outside of their database to run their business.  Although that may be great for the initial savings in your budget what these folks don’t think about is will they be happy with their decision in two weeks, two months or even two years from now. 

What are some of the features that healthcare staffing software have that others do not?

Credentialing

Although a lot of agencies try and manage credentials out of an excel spreadsheet  this is one of the biggest areas that if you don’t do this 100% right you can lose credibility with your client and potentially open your company up for a lawsuit. Most of the time, a healthcare specific staffing software will automatically notify caregivers and staffers to let them know if a caregiver has expiring or expired documents and it is very evident when in a caregiver profile that there is a problem with the credentials. 

Job Matching

Healthcare specific staffing software typically has rules, built into the software, to help find the right person for the right job.  For example BlueSky does several things in a job search and although the fancy social media is great for posting jobs, finding the most qualified candidate based on credentials, availability, DNR’s as well as experience.  Having this type of information is second to none when you are trying to place a caregiver in a very volatile market. BlueSky ensures that you are only call and submit the most qualified candidates for the job. 

Rates

Rates are probably one of the trickiest parts to managing a healthcare staffing agency.  Facilities tend to dictate billing rules which can be convoluted and complicated if you have never been in healthcare staffing before. Therefore if you are not familiar with the rounding and overtime rules or different billing weeks of a facility setting this up in systems not specific to healthcare staffing. In my experience I have seen many staffing agencies have major cash flow problems because they did not get paid from a facility in a timely manner due the inability to handle the different pay and bill rules a facility requires.

What happens if you have to manually track information?

There are three major issues that you must take into account if you decide to go with non-healthcare specific staffing software. 

• Are you willing to lose time and create your own internal processes?
• Are you okay with losing money by not having your payroll and invoicing?
• Are you able to handle high turnover if you upset caregivers when you ask for the same credential information over and over again?

Other things that are different when it comes to healthcare staffing

There are other things that are different when you are starting a healthcare staffing agency that are different from regular staffing including what Job Boards you choose to work with, how you manage your website and search engine optimization as well as the background check provider you choose.  If you would like to see a list of partners we know are familiar with healthcare specific staffing agencies please contact our sales team and they will be happy to provide it.

In the end you can get the job done with having many other systems to support your applicant tracking system but the decision needs to be made is that a good investment of your time and energy or is having a plug and play solution a better option for your startup. 

Are you an already existent agency, if so what have your experiences been?  What have you chosen and why?  Would you do it differently?