Hiring The Right Clinical Manager: Its Much More Than Just Promoting Your Best Staff Nurse.
shelly • July 3, 2021
I remember vividly being told one day, "You take all the best clinicians out of the field". At this time, the statement struck me. It is something I had not really considered. It was just what made sense. Your best clinical staff fill positions of management as they become open. Why wouldn't you want the responsible, hard-working, reliable people in these positions? Right? Well, you have to consider if this is the right decision for your agency and your patients. Let's look at some things to consider when hiring or promoting a clinical manager.
Choosing A Clinical Manager:
The best clinicians don't always hit the mark of a good clinical manager in today's home health climate. It is not to say that your best clinicians can't be great clinical managers. It is more about not assuming they will be. Here are our top 4 considerations for setting yourself up for success:
- How well does the clinician communicate during the plan of care? A huge part of clinical management is truly managing the care plan. You need to make sure that the best clinical person is also able to coordinate the care plan effectively. Changes to visit frequencies and visit plans are something that will need to be discussed by the clinical manager with the clinical disciplines providing the hands-on care on a routine basis. Gone are the times of this process just being about a one-sided report from the clinician to the manager.
- How well does the clinician understand the money? Clinicians don't like talking about clinical care and money together, but the reality is that some of your nurses and therapists are really good at understanding the finance end of things. Yes, you can afford to lose money on certain cases, but some of the best clinical staff are better in the field as opposed worrying about the dollars behind the cases they manage.
- What do your clinician candidate's care plans look like? This is also key as we live in a PDGM world. If you don't see how frequencies are based upon the most effective way to provide care to the patient in a cost-effective manner, then there are probably other things missing. Are care plans really long? If you pull 5 patients with the same diagnosis, does that clinician create the exact same care plan each time? Is the aide always added throughout the entire length of the care plan? Does it show forethought of progression of the patient to independence as the agency prepares for DC? Are the care plans updated along the way? These are all things to consider about your potential candidate. It will show you if the care plans are patient centered. It will show if the clinician clearly stays in their own swim lane and doesn't attempt to integrate a care plan. You need a clinician who promotes all disciplines working within full scope of practice for patients where they are the primary nurse. Rehab goals should be addressed with all disciplines every visit. Nursing goals can be achieved with the help of the home health aide and the rehab staff. Does your nurse have the have the aide or therapist report if there are days in the medi-box where the patient didn't take meds? Or, is this something potentially just held to assess once the nurse goes back into the home? These are simple examples of where our disciplines should overlap in advancing the care plan goals.
- How are they with confrontation? Your best clinicians may not be the ones who can address issues with other clinicians as they arise. The fact is that there absolutely will be times when your clinical manager will have to provide coaching or initiate a performance improvement plan. I recall once a manager who could not look clinical staff in the eye for these types of issues. It was a problem and the staff never took any type of performance improvement plan seriously because of it.
These are important things to consider for such an important position within your agency. It holds both clinical and financial ramifications as well potential compliance landmines if the wrong person is in charge of your clinical program. If you see good clinical staff who may not fit the role of clinical manager, then consider other ways to reward the clinician for being so good in homes with your patients.
At Kenyon Homecare Consulting
, we focus on high quality care while helping agencies to do it in a cost-effective way that promotes financial success as well. Call us today at 206-721-5091 or contact us online
if you need assistance with clinical care, operations management, education, policy and procedure manuals, ICD 10-coding, interim management, or more.
Results Based Consulting
Did you find value in this blog post? Imagine what we can do for your home care or hospice agency. Fill out the form below to see how we're leading the industry with innovation, affordability, and experience.
Contact Us
Managing compliance in the home care, home health, and hospice world is a challenge. Let's look at what it takes. It is necessary to be methodical and intentional.
Significant reductions is federal Medicaid funding has a huge impact to our nation's healthcare system to the tune of $911 billion over 10 years.
Somewhere in the mix of trying to improve patient care, the patients can get lost. The drive to to move to true patient centered care.
Quality of care issues present a range of challenges related to providing effective and safe care in a patient's home.
Infection Control breaches remain a problem in the home care industry. These are preventable errors for your surveys and in everyday practice.
Recruiting home care staff is challenging and costly, losing and replacing staff is worse. You also must consider lost opportunity costs.
One of the biggest challenges for home care and home health is the recruitment of staff to provide care. The high cost remains an issue for recruitment strategies.
There has been a growing issue with the supply of nurses and home care aides. This is particularly true for home care agencies. With the increased competition from hospitals, skilled nursing homes, Medicare home health and hospices for these workers, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit and hire.
HOPE Question and Answer Repository
Today, this article will look at little different than out typical articles. We all know the costs of losing employees and trying to hire and train new ones. It is exhausting and expensive. So, we think about our wages and benefit packages all the time. What can we do differently that makes people stay? We can’t change the job and we don’t want to keep people that don’t like the work itself. So, how do we acknowledge employees in a way that is valuable to them and that our businesses can afford to do? 5 Things To Consider About Employee Recognition At Your Christmas Party: 1. Years of Service: These can be based on milestone work anniversaries (5, 10, 15 yrs, etc.). If a person has been at your agency 11 years, you pull them up and acknowledge them in the group of employees who have been there at least 10 years up until the time they hit the 15 years landmark. This way longevity is recognized yearly. 2. Special Employee awards: Now, this may be difficult if your staff is very small, but acknowledge the employee who has gone the extra mile in the job they do. Tell the story. The employee needs to know when the employer is proud of the work that has been done. Consider a plaque or certificate. Don’t minimize the value of the employee having them to display. 3. Acknowledge all employees in the mix: Because we are a clinical industry, the administrative staff is often overlooked on day-to-day operations. Ultimately, don’t miss the chance to acknowledge the employee who was able to catch billing errors or collect on a large account. Staff doesn’t like to hear about money, but those types of collections keep Christmas bonuses in place! So, make sure the other staff knows the accomplishments of the finance department or the office manager that every caller loves to speak to. Don't ever forget the IT staff that is on call more than any clinical person in your agency! 4. Letters from the administration: Add a personal note to your staff either collectively or individually depending on the size of your agency. If you are larger, there are employees you don’t often see or get to talk to on a regular basis, so take the time so send a note with that Christmas bonus. 5. Consider the Christmas bonus: Listen, some of you can afford to do substantial monetary bonuses and that is fantastic. However, if you are not in that position, consider something in its place. Maybe small gas cards go with the letter from administration. With the cost of groceries, consider something that helps with the costs of daily living for employees. Big box gift cards in your area will always be used. You may do a lot of these things on a yearly basis to employees. All this being said, it doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons for acknowledgement throughout the year. However, your annual Christmas party is a good way to do it collectively. Between your annual party, write the individual cards to employees when you hear a patient interaction worthy of praise. Or, maybe you buy a gas card for the employee who has picked up extra shifts and always shows up on time. Ultimately, employees will feel valued. You will not regret the time, effort, and energy put into these efforts. Merry Christmas! If you want help with recruitment and retention strategies for your agency, please call Kenyon Homecare Consulting at 206-721-5091 or contact us online today.