- Healthcare workers left their jobs for multiple reasons including exhaustion, retirement, and high housing costs that prevent them from staying in their jobs or accepting one.
- This labor shortage also leads to long wait times for patients which prevent them from having a great customer experience.
- Medical practices must adjust to this new landscape by offering attractive salaries, remote work options if applicable, contracting out administrative tasks, and more.
The 2021 labor shortage hit the healthcare industry hard. This 2022 is no exception. Hospitals and medical practices continue struggling to fill job vacancies in this tight labor market.
According to the American Hospital Association (AHA), the workforce shortage challenge will continue to affect the quality of healthcare in the country. AHA´s data shows that America will face a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2033, and will need to hire at least 200,000 nurses per year to meet increased demand and replace retiring nurses.
There´s no denying that COVID-19 has maximized the healthcare workforce shortage effects. The pandemic showed the importance of addressing this issue to prevent a healthcare crisis.
Workers left their jobs at hospitals for multiple reasons such as emotional exhaustion, retirement, and more. Another circumstance that is impacting the healthcare labor shortage is the high housing costs.
When hospitals and medical practices started their hiring process, they found that some healthcare workers didn´t take the job due to high housing costs.
The lack of affordable housing is hindering the practices´ ability to plug staff shortages. According to Fox 4, this workforce shortage is also leading to long wait times for patients.
Align your practice to this labor environment
Medical practices need to adjust to this complex labor landscape to keep up with these challenges, while offering a great patient experience.
Competition has become fiercer. Offering attractive salaries, incentives and benefits has become the new norm. Additionally, mobility has become a massive and irreversible trend. If applicable, offering employees to work remotely is a great strategy.
Also, keep in mind remote opportunities, allowing you to open up your talent pool outside your geographic location.
If you need further assistance, consider contracting out administrative tasks like accounting, billing, credentialing, and more.
Read more about this on Health Prime and AdvantEdge whitepaper How Health Trends in 2021 Will Impact the Future of Medical Billing
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Resources
High housing costs preventing some workers from taking healthcare jobs (beckershospitalreview.com)
Long ER wait times linked to affordable housing crisis (fox4now.com)
Healthcare workforce challenges a national emergency, hospitals say (beckershospitalreview.com)
