As the healthcare labor shortage intensifies, hospitals are eager to get newly-hired physicians and nurses credentialled and working as quickly as possible. After all, the credentialing process takes up to 180 days—and every single one is a day that your new hires can’t spend caring for patients.
Of course, parts of the credentialing process are out of your hands. Once new hires have submitted their applications and supporting documentation, it’s up to each state’s medical board and managed care organizations to process these submissions.
But there is one practical way that hospitals can help out-of-state hires complete their submissions faster—and that’s by taking other job-related tasks off their minds and plates.
In addition to getting credentialed, those new hires of yours need to relocate. By simplifying their moving process, you’ll give them the time and mental energy they need to better focus on the application itself.
That alone can be a game-changer. When it comes to credentialing delays, hospitals’ top challenge is that new hires are failing to provide complete information—and they can’t start the process without a fully-complete application.
Chances are, you already have a relocation program in place. Chances are, you think it does the job. But if you haven’t evaluated your relocation program specifically in terms of freeing up your new hires’ time and headspace—or providing peace of mind—it’s time to do just that.
To that end, here’s how to ensure your relocation program is accelerating the credentialing process—as opposed to creating additional roadblocks.
Don’t Just Cover Cost: Make Moving Easier
Surveys indicate that nearly three-quarters of U.S. hospitals give new hires a relocation allowance. Unfortunately, many fail to offer supportive services to help plan the move, especially if the funding is handled in-house.
The easiest way to fill that gap? Bring in a tech-based relocation provider. In addition to handling the funding, providers like UrbanBound offers new hires a range of essential benefits and services including:
- An easy-to-access portal that allows employees to plan and book their move online
- A network of quality, pre-screened vendors, including movers and realtors
- A real-time tally of expenses as they’re accrued, and
- Helpful information about the new location, including housing, neighborhoods, transportation and more
And in addition to the portal, each new hire is paired with a dedicated relocation specialist who will help as much or as little as they’d like. That’s peace of mind.
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Shift In-house Staff from Relo Duty to Credentialing Support
According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, one of the best ways to speed the credentialing process is to designate one or more staff people to run point on all your incoming applications.
Not in a position to expand your administrative team? That’s okay: when you outsource your relocation program, you free employees who are already experts at working with new hires—except instead of juggling receipts and populating spreadsheets, they’re ensuring those all-important credentialing apps are completed promptly and fully.
The right tech-based relocation vendor will provide you with all the data you need to manage your program wisely, via a real-time dashboard of key information, on-demand analytics—and even automatically-generated reports emailed to your inbox.
End result: you not only achieve a smoother credentialing process, but a more closely-managed relocation program.
One More Word of Advice
If you’re outsourcing your relocation program for the first time, you may find your vendor choices overwhelming. With that thought, here are three questions to ask when evaluating relocation providers:
Are They Traditional or Tech-based?
Traditional providers operate primarily by people-power—that is, new hires are dependent upon a specific relocation consultant to help them manage their move. While tech-based providers like UrbanBound do provide relocation specialists, employees also have access to an empowering online portal, where they can manage much of their relocation how and when they choose.
In our experience, highly-trained professionals like physicians, researchers and nurses vastly prefer tech-based solutions to old-school methods—and their employers do, too.
Will They Cost Us or Save Us Money?
Few hospitals can afford to increase their relocation budgets right now. And with the right relocation provider, you won’t need to.
For example, when employers switch to UrbanBound, they save an average of 66% per move—while providing employees with a better relocation experience.
Do They Know the Healthcare Industry?
When it comes to relocation, the healthcare industry has unique needs. If you choose a provider that doesn’t understand them and therefore doesn’t accommodate them, you’re setting yourself and your new hires up for frustration—and that can impact their ability to get up and running in your facility.
At UrbanBound, we specialize in serving the healthcare industry. We know your needs and priorities and we have solutions. Want to speed your credentialing process? So do we. See how we’ll help you do it.
