Hugh Greeley’s Tips for Physician Recruiting Tools for the HR Professional

Verisys sponsored Hugh Greeley’s presentation at ASHHRA 2017 held in Seattle, Washington in September. In the presentation, Hugh encouraged human resource directors to be a champion of technology that consolidates and stores primary-source verified data on practitioners and allows any authorized party to access it.

He compared that technology to a driver’s license or the digital individual files kept by car rental companies that allow people to expedite the car rental experience. Verisys’ CheckMedic MedPass creates a single source of truth on every health care provider in the U.S. for each and every stakeholder, from providers to consumers.

Adding this technology to the human resource director’s process can remove the time lag between onboarding and clinical practice while assuring compliance through transparency. A quick turn between onboarding and clinical practice is an value-add to the candidate.

Acquisition can be tricky when there’s a shortage of talent in the marketplace. Sometimes onboarding a needed candidate quickly can supersede the need to ensure the right person is invited to join hospital staff. The following are steps to guide the human resource hiring process so that it results in a long-term, meaningful engagement:

Start with Clear Criteria

Recruit with the end game in mind. Be strategic with regard to specialties and privileging types.

Identify and Reinforce Culture

Evaluate the alignment of personality and experiential attributes of the candidate with your culture. Identify and implement aspects of the culture from top down with clarity and consistency.

Screen and Verify Against FACIS^®

FACIS^® is the only data set that reveals a historic, expanded view of a practitioner’s behavior. The OIG’s LEIE data set will only show if a practitioner is currently excluded. With FACIS^®, the human resource director can see current and historical exclusions as well as debarments, disciplinary actions, and sanctions ranging from as early as 1990 to real time.

Centralize and Digitize Application and Primary Source Verified Data

Your first act of appreciation when recruiting health care talent is to make the onboarding process efficient, swift, and painless.

STEPS FOR APPOINTING MEDICAL STAFF WHEN WORKING WITH RECRUITERS

1. Align recruitment criteria with medical staff appointment criteria (in other words, don’t recruit anyone who will not meet medical staff qualifications criteria if appointment to the medical staff is a component of the job).
2. Require recruiters to immediately secure a release of liability and authorization to inquire from the potential applicant.
3. Immediately require recruiters to conduct a minimum background screen including a search of FACIS^®, OIG and other exclusion sites, licensure history, and NPDB.
4. Require recruiter to immediately obtain relevant applications, such as medical staff application.

Note: All of the above should become part of the recruitment screening process in order to permit prompt processing of applications. In other words, start the process as early as possible.

5. Assume an offer has been made and accepted contingent upon specific accomplishments, such as obtaining medical staff appointment and relevant privileges.
6. Immediately initiate all primary source verification steps, including those of HR and medical staff services (as noted above, verifying state licensure and professional references is the process that must be initiated as early in the recruitment/application phase as possible).

Note: All normal processes required for employment and/or appointment should have been completed at this stage, including required applications, provision of access to medical staff bylaws, rules and regulations, and application policies and procedures.

7. If not previously completed, schedule required interviews with relevant medical staff leaders.
8. Assume employment and appointment files are complete, then process using expedited appointment procedure (see below).

Process for expedited granting of appointment and clinical privileges:

1. Schedule a joint meeting as designed by the medical executive committee, including a relevant medical staff department chair, chair of the medical staff credentials committee, Chief of Staff, CEO or authorized designee, and if necessary, a board member to ensure that at least two representatives of the board are present. (In many instances, the Chief of Staff or CEO could be board members.)
2. Hold a virtual meeting at which the department chair makes a recommendation representative of the medical executive committee acting in a special session per modified medial staff bylaws (department chair reviews file and makes recommendation, which is then immediately reviewed by representatives of the board acting as a special committee authorized pursuant to board policy).
3. Simultaneously process employment application using HR policies and procedures applicable to Licensed Independent Practitioners.

The Problem with Duplication

In many institutions, the employment process for licensed independent practitioners and the appointment process for medical staff contain significant unnecessary, costly, and time-consuming duplication.

HR personnel should seek to determine if any of the following are duplicated by the combination of HR, corporate compliance, medical staff office, or physician employment division:

1. State licensure checks
2. DEA (federal and/or state)
3. Board certification
4. Federal exclusion checks
5. Criminal background check
6. Verification of education training and experience (medical/other professional school, residency/other required postgraduate training, recent relevant clinical experience)
7. Malpractice insurance and claims history verification, NPDB report (in certain circumstances it is impossible to avoid duplicate NPDB checks)
8. Required interviews (if employment/appointment interviews are required, attempt to consolidate into a single multi-purpose interview, either in person or using virtual technology)
9. Required orientations (generally, institutions require both employment and medical staff appointment orientation process; attempt to combine into a single, seamless process)
10. Employment-related probationary period and appointment related FPPE process (attempt to avoid duplication in these two focused areas)

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Written by Susen Sawatzki Healthcare Industry Expert Muse. Writer. Publisher. Producer. Creator of Inspiring Narratives. Connect with Susen on LinkedIn