- Healthcare workers left their jobs for multiple reasons, including exhaustion, retirement, and high housing costs that prevented them from staying in their jobs or accepting new ones.
- This labor shortage also leads to long wait times for patients, which prevents them from having a great customer experience.
- Medical practices must adjust to this new landscape by offering attractive salaries, remote work options if applicable, contracting out administrative tasks, and more.
The 2021 labor shortage hit the healthcare industry hard, and 2022 is no exception. Hospitals and medical practices struggle to fill job vacancies in this tight labor market.
According to the American Hospital Association (AHA), the workforce shortage challenge will continue to affect the country’s healthcare quality. AHA’s data shows that America will face a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2033, and will need to hire at least 200,000 nurses per year to meet increased demand and replace retiring nurses.
There´s no denying that COVID-19 has maximized the effects of the healthcare workforce shortage. The pandemic showed the importance of addressing this issue to prevent a healthcare crisis.
Workers left their hospital jobs for multiple reasons such as emotional exhaustion, retirement, etc. Another circumstance impacting the healthcare labor shortage is the high housing costs.
When hospitals and medical practices started hiring, they found that some healthcare workers didn´t take the job due to high housing costs.
The lack of affordable housing hinders the practices’ ability to plug staff shortages. According to Fox 4, this workforce shortage also leads to long patient wait times.
Align your practice to this labor environment
Medical practices must adjust to this complex labor landscape to keep up with these challenges while offering a great patient experience.
Competition has become fiercer. Offering attractive salaries, incentives, and benefits has become the new norm. Additionally, mobility has become a massive and irreversible trend. If applicable, offering employees the opportunity to work remotely is a great strategy.
Also, keep in mind remote opportunities, allowing you to open your talent pool outside your location.
If you need further assistance, consider outsourcing administrative tasks such as accounting, billing, credentialing, and more.
Read more about this on Health Prime and AdvantEdge whitepaper How Health Trends in 2021 Will Impact the Future of Medical Billing.
Stay current on this and other industry news through our March 2022 newsletter. Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and our Health Prime Blog for ongoing leading industry medical practice guidance and policy updates.
Resources
High housing costs preventing some workers from taking healthcare jobs (beckershospitalreview.com)
Long ER wait times linked to affordable housing crisis (fox4now.com)
Healthcare workforce challenges a national emergency, hospitals say (beckershospitalreview.com)
