Anyone reading this has been hired to perform a job, has hired others to work a job, or both. It is expensive to find the right person with the appropriate skills who is right for the position and company culture.
Typically, all a hiring manager has available are applicants’ résumés for screening. After identifying half a dozen worthy candidates (if you are lucky), the hiring manager screens applicants via phone conversations and on-site interviews. The whole process is tedious, time-consuming, and expensive. If you are applying for a job, it is a roll of the dice to see if you fit into a position with a company.
What if you could significantly increase the odds of finding the right individual before expending so much time and resources? Maybe you are the applicant; what if you could know you would be successful in the job before you are hired? Both hiring managers and applicants have certain expectations regarding job openings, but how do either determine what constitutes “the right fit?” Is it meeting the culture of the position offered? It is just as stressful for the applicant to realize “This is not the right job for me” as it is for managers trying to figure out how to move a person who is a bad fit for a role after the fact.
Many companies offer these short pre-employment tests for potential new hires. These tests help both hiring managers and applicants understand if someone is right for a job opening. I have started using this approach and swear by it. Google the phrase “culture testing hiring process.” Such a search should return results for various testing options, as well as articles written by authors weighing the pros and cons of the approach.
Who is the Original Author?
We are constantly amused when we see policies and procedures at a facility we are working with that has our name on it or the name of someone with whom the facility has no relationship. Who really started your marketing plan? Who is the original author of the article you are reading? There are various online tools that can help organizations identify plagiarism. Conduct research to see if one of these tools is right for your organization. It might surprise you to find out where information originated.
Payer Contracts
Are your payer contracts up to date? Have you submitted your updated “charges” each year to all your payers? You are getting the short end on reimbursement if you have not. Payer contracting, like certification, is an ongoing process.
There are services available that can compare your payer contracts, rates, reimbursement, missed charges, incomplete insurance submissions, and average filing against other similar organizations. These are companies that provide this audit service for free. Again, this is another service worth researching online to see what is right for your organization.
Benchmarking
This is essential to effective and efficient operations at your facility. Lately, we have visited some surgery facilities whose leaders think they are doing well until they compare themselves with their peers and realize they are missing the mark in some critical areas. Again, many (if not most) benchmarks for our industry are available online for free. Even if you just secretly check out yours against others, it is still good information to know.
(Earnhart & Associates is a consulting firm specializing in all aspects of outpatient surgery development and management. Earnhart & Associates can be reached at 5114 Balcones Woods Drive, Suite 307-203, Austin, TX 78759. Phone: (512) 297-7575. Fax: (512) 233-2979. Email: [email protected]. Web: www.earnhart.com. Instagram: Earnhart.Associates.)
This month's column touches on hiring and contract best practices.
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