4 Ways PEO Solutions Benefit Medical Practices

Quick look: The field of medicine is a noble calling, marked by a deep commitment to patient care and well-being. However, behind the scenes of every successful medical practice lies a complex web of administrative tasks, HR responsibilities, and regulatory hurdles. For healthcare professionals, the demands of managing a practice can sometimes overshadow their primary mission: delivering high-quality healthcare. A professional employer organization (PEO) can step in as a powerful ally, simplifying operations, reducing costs, and allowing medical practices to focus on what truly matters most.

Running a medical practice can be a rewarding endeavor, but it comes with a unique set of challenges. From managing HR tasks to handling compliance and navigating the complexities of healthcare regulations, physicians and practitioners often find themselves overwhelmed with administrative responsibilities. This is where a professional employer organization (PEO) can step in to provide valuable assistance. Keep reading to discover four distinct benefits healthcare leaders can gain by investing in PEO solutions. 

1. Better benefits elevate patient satisfaction

A medical professional’s own health influences their engagement and productivity at work. Employee burnout has become more evident in the American workforce, with 89% of workers reporting they’ve experienced it in the past year. Since healthcare professionals’ risk of burnout is 2.2 to 2.9 times higher than other professions, medical practices must be mindful of how burnout can minimize worker productivity. More importantly, drops in employee engagement rates due to burnout can lead to less-than-satisfactory patient experiences.

Developing comprehensive employee benefits packages counter burnout by supporting employees’ physical and mental health needs. Medical practices can partner with a PEO to improve their benefits offerings. PEOs have access to top-rated benefits providers that enable SMB practices to gain enterprise-level benefits at a more affordable cost than purchasing those benefits individually. 

These packages can also go beyond medical, dental, vision, and life insurance plans. PEOs can help their partners strategize and set up supplemental benefits such as commuter allowance programs, pet insurance, and legal services. By enhancing benefit offerings, healthcare workers are given more peace of mind, which enhances their ability to provide engaged and quality care to their patients. This engagement raises a medical practice’s chances of earning positive patient satisfaction scores, which can increase the amount of patient recommendations received and new patients onboarded.

2. Full-scale recruiting adds ease to hiring non-clinical staff

Clinical short staffing has become a critical reality within the healthcare industry. According to the American Hospital Association, a shortage of 3.2 million healthcare workers is expected by 2026 if current clinical job vacancies trend persist. The shortage is also becoming a costly challenge, with hospitals experiencing a 15.6% increase in labor expenses. 

These trends are making hiring managers within medical practices dedicate a lot of their time to filling open clinical roles. Unfortunately, the effort needed to complete this hiring objective detracts from their availability to properly manage and select applicants for non-clinical roles such as office administrators, quality control coordinators, and billing managers. PEOs rectify this issue with its recruiting services. For example, ExtensisHR is a PEO that provides full-scale recruiting solutions at no additional cost to their customers. These solutions include, but are not limited to:

• Unlimited 30-minute phone consultations with our trained specialists
• Salary surveys to pinpoint fair competitive wages
• Job ad creation and publication on top virtual job boards
• Interview assistance and guides available in the Recruiting Cloud
• Talent pool assessments to identify top applicants
• Skills assessments to verify a candidate’s experience
• Offer letter consultations when the right candidate is chosen

Healthcare professionals who utilize this service can fill the gaps in the hiring process for non-clinical roles while achieving more free time to focus on onboarding and retaining the physicians, nurses, and other medical staff members that drive their practice’s direct patient treatments. 

3. Proper payroll administration prevents costly fines

Medical practices handle multiple financial responsibilities, with patient billing management being the most significant duty. This integral financial operation requires strict attentiveness to correctly execute its various daily tasks like collecting medical payment details and validating a patient’s insurance coverage. 

The demanding nature of these processes can overshadow a practice’s payroll obligations. Though medical service billing is a business priority, lackluster payroll management can generate unwanted errors such as underpaying or not paying employees. These mistakes can cause companies hefty financial setbacks; according to the IRS, almost $7 billion in fines were issued to companies in 2021 due to payroll errors.

Partnering with a PEO offers access to expert payroll administration solutions. While a medical practice’s internal teams handle the patient billing, PEOs manage the financial to-dos regarding employee wages. Payroll scheduling is set up and monitored to ensure the right employee gets the right payment at the right time. PEOs also maintain tax filing processes such as verifying employees’ I-9 documentation and preparing W-2 forms. These strategies keep medical practices’ financial budgets organized while also protecting the business from costly inconsistencies that hinder success.

4. PEO risk experts improve compliance strategies

It’s no secret that healthcare is a highly regulated industry. HIPAA laws dictate how patient information must be collected and stored. Medical practices turn to guidelines set by The National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association (NHCAA) to protect themselves from healthcare fraud, which is responsible for approximately tens of billions of dollars in financial losses annually. Workplace safety standards, from infectious disease control to environmental cleanliness best practices, are also addressed thanks to federal mandates such as the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 (OSHA). 

Despite these and other regulations being prominent in the healthcare field, medical practice leaders often struggle to stay up-to-date with compliance laws since they frequently evolve. Fortunately, PEOs help healthcare professionals conquer this challenge by offering risk and compliance solutions. Certified risk experts dedicate their time to researching federal, state, and local laws that affect the healthcare industry. Their research is then used to curate effective strategies that keep a practice compliant.

Risk mitigation assessments, for example, help medical practitioners pinpoint which business operations are meeting regulatory expectations and which need to be revisited. Healthcare leaders can also consult with PEO risk experts to determine best practices for addressing vital regulation changes and educating their staff on current compliance expectations. With the advantage of a PEO partnership, staying compliant becomes an easier and less time-consuming objective. 

Let ExtensisHR restore your HR plan

Healthcare professionals are busy enough with overseeing the numerous patient interactions happening within their medical practices. Choosing ExtensisHR as a trusted PEO partner offloads the pressure of HR management while empowering your practice to: 

• Improve payroll management operations
• Access full-scale recruiting at no additional cost
• Develop thorough risk mitigation plans and compliance policies
• Achieve Fortune-500 level employee benefits and other supplementary perks
• Work alongside a designated HR Manager and account team
• Use our mobile-first Work Anywhere® platform to track their performance on HR initiatives 
• Get assistance from our customer support team who replace call center confusion with human-first conversations

Better HR fosters better healthcare practices. Contact ExtensisHR today to schedule a meeting with our PEO professionals.