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When to utilize healthcare contract workers

Scott Galanos
Contract healthcare worker Addison Group placed for a client

You start work and it’s nonstop all day. Phones are ringing off the hook. More patients need to see providers, and your coding staff is overwhelmed by the amount of patient information they need to input for billing. With more work and not enough staff, you risk your full-time employees suffering from burnout and, in turn, risk losing them.

How do you dig out from seemingly insurmountable backlogs and avoid losing good employees? Especially if you don’t have the authorization to bring on additional permanent employees. The answer is by hiring experienced contract workers to help you catch up. Considering the demand for contract workers has grown 23% year over year and 170% since 2022, this seems to be a common solution to a common problem.

Here are some benefits to hiring non-clinical healthcare contract workers, how they can help your organization, and when you should hire them.

Benefits of healthcare contract workers

Contract employees offer a lot of benefits to healthcare organizations.

  1. Budget-friendly: contract healthcare talent is an economical option if your organization doesn’t have the budget or workload to hire a full-time employee. Hiring contract talent saves your organization money since you don’t have to pay for standard benefits associated with permanent employees like health insurance, retirement plans, or PTO.
  2. Larger talent pools: hiring contract healthcare talent opens a larger talent pool. Contract talent also tends to have niche skillsets like coding or medical billing, so you can target specific problem areas and apply resources (temporary help) to get caught up.  
  3. Faster hiring process: when you have a need, you want help fast. The hiring process for contract talent is generally much faster than with a permanent position. Hiring for these roles requires fewer interviews, which means you can secure the specific talent you need and get your organization moving forward.

How contract talent helps your organization

Contract talent transforms your healthcare organization.

  1. Medical coders: You can hire contract medical coders to help when you have a temporary influx of patients or at year-end. They can ensure that patient information is input correctly for accurate billing.
  2. Revenue Cycle professionals: You can hire contract Accounts Receivable and Denials professionals to process and collect revenue from patients and insurance companies. They ensure your healthcare organization receives payment as quickly as possible.
  3. Operations: Contract medical receptionists and administrators can foster a positive patient experience and ensure the day-to-day functions at your organization run smoothly.

When to consider contract talent for your healthcare organization

The following are some common instances when you should consider hiring contract healthcare talent for your organization:

  1. During year-end write-off season: end of year write-offs can create a heavy load for your revenue cycle team. Not having enough staff during the busy season can slow your organization down and prevent you from completing write-offs on time. Adding contract professionals focused on AR can help your organization collect more money by reducing possible write-offs and increasing collections.
  2. Increased volume of patients: in seasons when more people are getting sick and you have a higher volume of patients, hiring contract talent helps your organization efficiently handle the influx of patients and open more bandwidth for your permanent staff.
  3. More non-emergency procedures: as the year comes to close and many patients have hit their deductibles, patients will schedule more non-emergency procedures before their insurance resets in the new year. With an increase in procedures, it’s beneficial to hire contract employees to help with intake, prior authorization, and insurance verification functions for this temporary spike in medical services.

Where do you find healthcare contract talent?

You wouldn’t be considering hiring additional help if you weren’t already busy. So how can you find the right healthcare contractors for your needs? Let us help. Addison Group is a leading provider of non-clinical healthcare contractors. For more than 20 years, our experts have connected healthcare organizations with contract and permanent talent who can get the job done. Let’s talk.