The daily demands of running medical practice require an entire team of support. But, it's hard to delegate these essential patient care responsibilities to just anyone. In that coordinated search for the right medical assistant (MA), a seasoned medical assistant recruiter can make all the difference, finding the right potential hire for your practice and ensuring you've got the best hands on deck.
Here are five tips from medical assistant recruiters to help guide your search for the best MA to join your practice.
1. Don't Take Shortcuts to Find Talent
Healthcare is taxing, and being short-staffed can lead to poor patient care and medical mistakes. But the biggest misstep you can make is allowing the urgency of hiring to push you into making hasty hiring decisions. Cutting corners may lead to unintended consequences, such as ill-suited hires or costly turnover.
Let Your Goals Guide You
Plan out your healthcare recruitment strategy. Clarify your organization's goals and values and use that as the starting board for your MA search. Seeking a medical assistant that aligns with your vision and culture is more likely to deliver a MA that provides superior patient care and blends seamlessly into your established team.
Applications Are Only A Springboard
While online applications are the first step in your search, you must dive into an MA's background and qualifications to assess if they meet your practice's standards. As you review each potential candidate's application for solid credentials and qualifications, don't be tempted to cut corners by skimming through these documents hastily. Take the time to have a thorough screening and interviewing process. This will help you to find the best permanent fit for your practice.
2. Clearly Define the Position
What type of medical assistant roles are you trying to fill?
Do you need medical assistants limited to escorting patients to their exam rooms, or do you need one whose highly skilled in pre-visit planning, medical review, and a part of your discharge team?
Before you start the healthcare recruitment process, ensure that the responsibilities of the medical assistant role are clearly defined. A detailed job description will attract candidates that are genuinely interested in the work and qualified.
Get Your Team Involved
Speak with your medical team to get their perspectives on what qualities they think the medical assistant should possess to excel in the role. This dialogue will help you narrow your search for the best talent for your practice and patients.
3. Review Credentials and Soft Skills
Licensures, degrees, and certifications provide insight into a candidate's professional qualifications. But you need to go beyond a list of formal credentials to be sure your MA will fit into your team and be a valuable asset to your patients.
Don't Ignore Soft Skills
Look for candidates that also demonstrate excellent soft skills—empathy, flexibility, and dependability. To shine as a medical assistant, a candidate needs to be people-centered and genuinely enjoy helping people. Examine their communication skills and how they plan to use them in the role—using psychometric assessment tools and targeted interview questions to get a clear picture of an applicant's interpersonal skills.
4. Develop a Comprehensive Hiring Process
Hiring should be a priority within your practice. Ensure your entire team is on board with the MA recruitment process, including your doctors and other staff members. And while hiring a talented medical assistant can take a while, sometimes up to 6 weeks, it can be done efficiently with a detailed process and the right resources.Have a Clear Step-by-Step Recruitment Plan
Create a thorough medical recruitment process that outlines each step. Your approach should include your digital marketing recruitment strategy, reviewing qualifications, screening, drug testing, background checks, onboarding paperwork, etc. Be transparent with your team about how long you anticipate they'll be involved in hiring and the tasks they will need to complete.
Communicate with Candidates
Ensure prompt communication of hiring timelines to applicants. Offer clear expectations regarding the duration of the hiring process to avoid them dropping out altogether. Plus, effective deadline communication also fosters accountability within your team, ensuring everyone stays on track.
5. Offer Competitive Compensation
While finding the best talent is the ultimate goal, it's equally important to retain them. If you want to attract top medical assistants and keep them for years to come, you need to offer competitive salaries and benefits.
Research the industry standards for medical assistant salaries in your area and aim to compile a similar or better package. But keep in mind that staying competitive may mean looking at benefits beyond salary, such as vacation time, training opportunities, education reimbursements, and a flexible schedule.
Work with an Experienced Medical Assistant Recruiter
These five tips from a medical assistant recruiter should provide a solid starting point for finding the right talent for your medical assistant position. However, there's no denying the complexity of the hiring process. It requires time, resources, and a deep understanding of the healthcare industry.
At Hire Velocity, we understand the unique hiring challenges of the healthcare industry and the emphasis on patient care. No matter what your talent needs, we partner with you to optimize your talent acquisition strategy, from entry-level roles all the way to the C-suite.
Contact us to learn more about our healthcare recruiting solutions.
