Some county societies offer staffing services

Some local medical societies are creating for-profit affiliates to address one of their members' more common problems: office staffing.

Several medical societies have added staffing services to their cadre of member services in recent years. Their focus is on any health care employee except physicians. They staff positions from the front-desk receptionist to the specialized registered nurse, and they place employees in temporary and permanent positions.

Not only do the societies say they are filling a niche by catering mainly to physicians, but they also are capitalizing on their name and reputation to jump-start their marketing effort.

"There's no doubt in my mind that having [the medical society] nomenclature is advantageous," said Beckett Shady-King, executive vice president of the Sarasota County Medical Society in Florida, which started its for-profit affiliate, CMS Staffing, last year. "After all, we all know anybody can get a small business loan and start their own staffing firm, and we don't need another hat to wear. But no staffing company can come into town and start off with the reputation and client base we have."

Some county medical societies have offered this service for decades, but others just recently started. The challenge for them is that physicians are actually less likely to call for temporary help than they did years ago.

"With declining physician reimbursement and a cross-trained staff, physicians are not so ready to call and bring in someone for temporary work," said Mike Cates, executive vice president of the Memphis Medical Society, which operates the staffing firm Medical Society Business Bureau. "But there are more physicians in town. You have to work at it just like you're a commercial company."

Still, there is a sizeable market for staff recruiting.

For example, the National Assn. for Health Care Recruitment, in conjunction with JWT Employment Communications, surveys its members each year regarding vacancy and turnover rates. The overall vacancy rate for health care positions, ranging from lab technicians to registered nurses to clerical staff, was 10.6%, said the association report. That percentage was largely driven by the national nursing shortage, which the association said led to a 16.2% vacancy rate among its members.

NAHCR Executive Director Cathy Allman cautioned that most of the association's members staffed larger health care organizations and hospitals, not small physician practices. The numbers could be different for the physician office market, she said.

Still, "there are some shortages out there," Allman said. "And when there's a shortage, health care professionals kind of move around or shop around a little."

Medical societies have recognized the need for staffing services not through national figures, but through member feedback. The staffing firm is designed as a member benefit, so even though the business works with all types of clients, physicians who belong to their respective societies usually get the service at a discount.

"So much of what the medical society does is intangible," said John Krah, executive director of the Pittsburgh-based Allegheny County Medical Society, which just started Allegheny County Medical Society Staffing Services a few months ago. "A staffing service helps them with the business side of their practice."

Some recent entrants into the staffing business are entering a partnership with Cameron Tucker, a commercial staffing firm based in San Antonio. The company is working with five medical societies in metropolitan markets, including Sarasota and Pittsburgh, and will add a sixth partnership in Indianapolis next year, said company President Patrick Dudley.

The partnerships have worked so far, Dudley said, because they combine a commercial staffing firm's industry expertise with the medical society's reputation. "Not only will it bring [medical societies] some extra money to do things, but as our staffing service gets around, they're getting new members because of it," he said.