The importance of a good medical assistant is unparalleled for your healthcare business. A medical assistant can help you save time, and effort, making the other processes less daunting. However, many healthcare practices fail to find a perfect medical assistant. Finding a good medical assistant or receptionist is challenging for several reasons:

• Low pay
• Little to no benefits
• Limited upward mobility

Despite these, it is best to hire a good medical assistant as they set the tone and culture of your practice. On top of that, many healthcare practices consider not hiring a medical assistant due to the costs associated with it. Some of the advantages of hiring locally

• Long term commitment
• Relationship with patients
• Adapts to your work style
• Increased productivity over time

Now that you know the advantages and importance of hiring the right medical assistant, let’s discuss a few steps to find the best hires.

Sourcing

The sourcing step involves getting as many medical assistants to apply for your position as possible. You would need quality as well as quantity of qualified candidates. The top options to explore are

1. Colleagues: Before going out and hiring, check within your personal and professional network to see if they know of good candidates. When it works, it is the fastest and most effective way of hiring great employees.
2. Employee Referrals: Outside of personal networks, your employee referral can be the next best way to hire great talent. Offer a referral bonus to your employees if you hire one of their referrals. The benefits are that such hires tend to stay the longest, perform well, and match your practice’s personality.
3. Online Job Boards: After you have exhausted the first two sources, it is time to widen the search to identify the largest candidate pool. Online job boards such as Indeed.com and ZipRecruiter.com are the most commonly used job portals. Post your job description and promote it for more visibility to potential candidates. You will likely get a deluge of candidates and you will need to spend more time screening candidates.
4. Temp Agencies: If you need to hire someone in a short period, your best route might be to hire through a temp agency. They likely have a list of candidates that can step in quickly. However, they are often not the best candidates, are more expensive, and are likely a short-term solution. You can also opt for an option to hire after a certain period if you like the candidate.

Once you complete the Sourcing step, it is time to screen candidates. Remember candidates don’t all apply at the same time so it is important to actively do the next steps to maintain a manageable pool of candidates.

Screening

The screening is one of the most important parts of the interview process where you will evaluate the capabilities of the applicants. The screening step usually involves two steps:

1. Shortlisting: Shortlisting is the process of quickly scanning the resumes to filter out candidates who are not a good fit for the position. You are likely to use the following criteria:

• Years of experience
• Practice Specialty 
• Job Responsibilities
• Duration at each job
• Any red flags

If you are using an online job portal, clear them from the queue so that you maintain a short list of candidates for the next step. 

1. Screening calls: A screening call is likely a brief 15-minute phone conversation (no video) to identify if the person matches some of the basic criteria. This is a critical step and should be completed by yourself or the office manager. Listen to how the conversation starts and if the conversation flows naturally between you and the candidate. Do a quick introduction, explain that this is a 15-minute screening call, and then put them at ease to see their natural conversational style. If you can see the candidate be an ambassador for your practice, then set up a time for the in-person interview.

Interviewing

Set aside 30-40 minutes of your time to do the interview. If you are the office manager, make sure to ask the physician to set aside time as well to meet with the medical assistant. In-person interview is a fairly involved process and you are looking for many things. Read this article on How to conduct in-person interviews for an in-depth understanding of interviewing candidates. 

Reference check

If the candidate passes the in-person interview, you have one more step to do before you finalize the candidate. You are likely tempted to make an offer and get them started but it is important not to skip this step. Some employers may be reluctant to give feedback but if you get the candidate’s direct supervisor’s name, inform the candidate that you will be calling as they are going to want to help. If they don’t, that by itself could be telling.

Read this article on How to conduct background checks for a deep dive into validating the candidate before sending out offers. 

Now, you are ready to send out an offer. Read this article on How to craft a winning offer letter for your hire.

Conclusion

Finding great talent locally for your medical practice can be daunting but is usually the best solution. While the interviewing and on-boarding process may seem extensive and daunting, a good medical assistant can make or break your healthcare business. Follow the above mentioned steps to hire the best talents. 

Pro Tip: If you need to staff a position quickly, check out the article on 5 Ways to Find a Medical Assistant Within 3 Days.

Pro Tip: If you are finding it difficult to staff a position, or if you are on a limited budget, check out our article on Could Virtual Receptionist and Medical Assistant be the answer to staffing woes?