Training for compliance is one thing, but educating staff continuously as a way to keep them engaged is an entirely different process that yields a more powerful ROI for any medical practice.
Staff development should be just as important as high quality care. Why is an environment of continuous learning so important to your practice? What are the benefits it can yield that impact your bottom line?
Here’s what every medical practice manager should know about the benefits of training and educating your staff and teams.
1. Staff Training Correlates to Higher Practice Revenues
First, the obvious benefits of training: It improves employee performance. Practice managers with an eye to the bottom line will note the correlation between higher revenue and improved staff performance. Training your employees improves the hard and soft skills they need in a busy practice setting. Teaching staff how to improve their overall performance can impact your practice in ways that strongly affect your daily cash flow:
- Asking for and collecting co-pays
- Verifying appointments
- Handling patients professionally
- Billing immediately and verifying claims fast
- Reviewing and appealing denials immediately
- Managing and using practice inventory carefully
- Asking for new patient referrals
These are skills that can all be taught as part of the normal rigor of an efficient practice. However, training also impacts morale and that can pay you back in all kinds of ways.
2. Training Reduces Turnover
We know that staff turnover is high in the healthcare industry. In 2017, the average healthcare turnover rate hovered at 18.2%. Market analysts said the healthcare industry was second only to the hospitality industry in the sheer volume of turnover we experienced.
Managing turnover during a global pandemic is now even more critical. It’s a lot tougher to devote time to staff retention when your receptionist was exposed and is in quarantine or your biller is trying to juggle home schooling or your doctor suddenly decides to add a telemedicine service line. Right now, many practice managers are engaged in a fire fight. However, even during these challenges, a good practice manager must be diligent in devoting his or her energy toward staff enrichment in the form of training and education.
The Benefits Guide notes the impact training can have on reducing staff turnover:
“If you want to know how to reduce employee turnover, you need to start thinking about employee training and development. It’s not usually at the top of the list—most people think about salaries and benefits first—but making room for growth can work
wonders on your turnover rate.”
According to MGMA, replacing even an entry-level staffer can cost a practice up to 25% of their salary. If establishing a standardized, rigorous training curriculum in your practice cuts down on staff turnover, this effort will literally pay for itself over time.
3. Training Improves Employee Engagement
As far back as 2017, the Studer Group was extolling the importance of staff engagement in your practice. Citing studies showing that an engaged team produces higher quality care outcomes and fewer errors, they stated, “Employees who are given the opportunity to build their skillset are more collaborative and feel valued.”
An engaged employee is a motivated employee. They feel more passionate about their work and will have a sense of belonging to something greater than themselves. Engagement is particularly important to millennials, who will make up 75% of the workforce by 2025.
Providing training and advancement opportunities for your practice staff will engage them in the success of the practice while rewarding them and advancing the organization. It’s just this simple: If you invest in your employees, they will invest in you.
4. Training Improves Physician Engagement
Your physicians should play a role in your staff development strategies. In an independent practice, the physician is typically also the business owner who may not give a lot of thought to staff training as part of his or her role in the clinic. They may not have time or simply believe it is the role of the practice manager. However, the reality is that your clinical providers are outstanding resources given the years of education and training they’ve received. This will also strengthen understanding between doctors and the other members of your patient care and practice teams.
If you’re in a group setting or have employed physicians, midlevels, nurses, or other clinical teams, the importance of providing these knowledge workers with additional training is just as important as curriculum for front and back office staff. However, this educational investment should move beyond licensure requirements to help clinical teams with work/life balance, burnout, or other elective subjects not related to credentialing.
Involving physicians in staff training is another way to engage them in the success of the practice beyond clinical outcomes or revenue generation. One study showed engaged physicians are:
- More loyal, cooperative, and willing to work through challenges
- Have higher productivity levels
- Provide better care and improved patient safety
- Have a more engaged patient based
There is also the added benefit of setting continuing education as a cultural standard in your practice. One study noted the importance of including doctors in this effort, “The truth is that if staff education and development are not a priority for the physicians who own the practice, they will not be a priority for anyone under them.”
5. Training Improves Customer Satisfaction
The benefits of establishing a training methodology in your practice ultimately rolls out to the most important benefactor: Your patients. Providing training to your teams can impact patients by improving staff behaviors and attitudes in the following ways:
- They will care more about the satisfaction of your patients
- They will work harder to keep patients satisfied
- They will be more confident and less frustrated
- They will make fewer mistakes
Top performing medical practices understand there is no secret formula to better customer service. However, they do know that providing their teams with the tools that they need to do a better job both clinically and from a customer service perspective will improve the practice. Happier, more engaged workers will work harder to satisfy your customers. More satisfied customers will engage with your practice on social media and tell their families and friends about their experience at your practice. Establishing a training program for staff can do all these things for your practice, and more.
6. Training is Your Best Marketing Tool
Broadly speaking, marketing and employee engagement are closely tied together. You can’t focus on patient experience and attracting and retaining patients if your employees aren’t in sync; especially not in the world of Yelp and Google.
Happy, engaged workers are the best marketers for your business. Successful practices use training to engage workers and keep them happier. They, in turn, will build lifetime relationships with patients. The impact will go beyond your practice and into the community. Your workers are the front-line marketers for your practice, coming into contact with potential patients every time they visit church, attend a school function, or go shopping.
The benefits of training create a ripple effect that radiates outward from the absorbed curriculum, affecting much more than the knowledge and skills of your practice and clinical staff. Adding a structured development program to your practice is part of your effort to create and sustain an environment of high-quality care.
Today, we have so many challenges. Developing a culture of practice excellence may seem out of reach. Many practice managers are struggling right now just to put out the fires started from the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet there are so many benefits stemming from a long-term training program for your clinical professionals and staff that training should be elevated as a priority for your practice in the years to come.
