As a Trusted Advisor working with many healthcare and dental startups and small businesses, we know that hiring your first employees is equal parts exciting and daunting. Bringing on additional staff allows your medical, dental, or home health practice to increase capacity, offer more services, and reduce the administrative burden on you as the owner. However, the hiring process involves crucial factors like determining roles, vetting candidates, payroll administration, and benefits management. Use this comprehensive beginner’s guide to make the process of hiring staff for your new healthcare venture smoother.

Define Exactly Which Roles You Need

Carefully consider what positions are truly essential to enable your practice to operate efficiently and work toward growth goals right now. Common roles for healthcare small businesses include:

– Clinical/Dental Staff: Physicians, hygienists, dental assistants, nurses, technicians, therapists
– Administrative: Office manager, biller/coder, receptionist
– Support Staff: Janitorial, security

Take time to outline very clearly the day-to-day responsibilities, specialty skill requirements, licenses/training, and qualifications for each role. This will steer your hiring process towards finding candidates that are an ideal fit.

Get the Word Out and Source Candidates

Advertise open positions by posting on free online job boards like Indeed and Craigslist. You can also contact local medical training programs and professional healthcare associations to source potential candidates. Design simple but compelling job ads, highlighting must-have skills and briefly selling what makes your practice an excellent place to work.

Thoroughly Screen and Personally Interview Applicants

Check credentials, qualifications, and work history on applications. Conduct brief phone screens with the most promising applicants for each role. For final round interviews, prepare a standardized list of questions based on the required duties and qualifications for that position. Remember to avoid any illegal or inappropriate interview questions. Focus your in-person interview on thoroughly assessing both the hard clinical skills and soft people skills needed for succeeding in the role through open-ended behavioral and situational questions.

Verify Backgrounds and Credentials

Carefully confirm education history, professional certifications, licenses and past work experiences. Also follow healthcare regulations and run any required criminal background checks for the position. Many healthcare accreditation programs mandate screening employees against exclusion lists to validate licensing status and practice eligibility.

Learn more about TSAT’s Trusted Solutions!

Make Offers and Onboard New Hires

Before extending an offer, be very clear on compensation, benefits, work schedule, vacation time, and any other crucial details upfront with the candidate. Once an offer is accepted, implement a thoughtful onboarding plan to fully train your new hires on your practice’s systems, processes, culture and expectations.

Don’t Forget a Payroll Plan!

At TSAT, we always remind new businesses that setting up payroll and benefits can become very complex quickly. Work are an experienced payroll processing provider and accounting TRUSTED ADVISORS! We handle handle pay, taxes, insurance, 401k plans and other financial aspects of managing staff! We ensures full compliance, accuracy and efficiency as your team grows!

Hiring those first essential employees for your new practice brings so much opportunity coupled with challenges. But taking a strategic approach helps set both your business and your new hires up for success. With the right staff in place, you can devote focus to delivering quality care and serving the needs of more patients in your community.

For personalized guidance on seamlessly managing payroll or other accounting needs as you scale, give us a shout!