Compliance and certification requirements for hiring registered nurses
While hiring registered nurses, proper measures must be taken to navigate the compliance and RN certification requirements imposed by the states. There are various ways of hiring registered nurses, such as permanent, contract, and contract-to-hire. Each has its own regulatory guidelines and compliance policies set up by the state, which need to be followed during the entire recruitment process. The legal requirements for practicing as a registered nurse in the USA include attaining a license specific to the state and completing the required qualifications. The minimum qualification requirement for nurses includes a bachelor’s degree in nursing, an associate’s degree in nursing, or a diploma from a university accredited by the board. Even though this legal requirement verification seems simple, other regulatory guidelines and policies imposed by the state, including the primary responsibilities of RN, complicate the RN hiring process. Understanding the legal challenges of RN hiring and staying updated on the current regulatory guidelines are key to staffing your facility with the providers you desire. This blog delves into the hiring compliance and nursing certification requirements associated with hiring RNs and the ways to streamline them.
Legal and compliance challenges healthcare organizations face when hiring RNs
The following are some of the key challenges and solutions to consider when hiring registered nurses for your healthcare facility.
- Challenge: Confirm that the candidate has a valid license to work in the state where your facility is located.
- Solution: The NCLEX (National Council Licensure Examination) for RNs is the license examination for nurses in the USA that checks the competency of a nurse to work as a registered nurse in the USA. The validity of the license can be verified by the state board of nursing. Most boards have online tools where you can enter the license number to check its status. You can also look up and verify a license at Nursys in addition to the state’s license verification board.
- Challenge: Conducting a thorough background check for any criminal, drug abuse, or sexual harassment history.
- Solution: There are reputed medical staffing solutions providers in the USA that can take care of the entire credentialing process.
- Challenge: Adhering to the Equal Employment Opportunity law (EEO) to restrict any bias based on gender, age, race, disability, etc.
- Solution: Having a structural interview process where all the candidates are evaluated on a common benchmark can help adhere to the equal employment opportunity law. In addition, documenting every record of the recruitment process can help you overcome any compliance issues that may arise in healthcare.
- Challenge: Following the federal and state labor law regarding employment and workplace policies
- Solution: Staying updated with the changing norms and labor laws of the state can help in the timely review of the HR policies.
- Challenge: Complying with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) Regulations to secure workplace safety standards
- Solution: Proper training regarding the safety standards needs to be implemented while onboarding the candidate. Make this training mandatory so that even the candidates experienced in working in the healthcare setting can undergo it. Furthermore, regular safety audits should be conducted to ensure hiring compliance.
- Challenge: Ensuring compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) regulations which protects the patients’ data privacy.
- Solution: Execute strict policies for storing, handling, and sharing patient information and educate all staff on the best practices for data confidentiality.
Bonus tip: to ensure continuing education qualification, provide ongoing training to your existing registered nurse staff and support them in taking certifications.
Potential legal implications of hiring unlicensed or uncertified nurses
Given the criticality of the healthcare industry, the facilities can face serious consequences if unlicensed or uncertified nurses are hired. Legal considerations in RN hiring need to be followed as unlicensed nurses can misdiagnose patient symptoms, violate infection control measures and risk safety standards, or cause medical errors that can cause harm to the patients. Severe regulatory penalties will be charged to healthcare facilities for being non-compliant with regulatory standards. Moreover, if any patient harm is caused, a lawsuit will be filed, and the facility will be held liable for the negligence. Based on the severity of the situation, healthcare facilities may lose their accreditation.
Consequently, this can damage the reputation of the facility and result in the loss of patient trust. Reputation damage can affect the facility’s brand, which results in a shortage of skilled candidates to work in the facility. Also, having a case of non-compliance history for the facility can cause higher liability insurance premiums as the risk associated with the facility falls high.
Source: American Medical Association
In cases where HIPAA regulations are compromised, hefty fines will be charged to the facility depending upon the severity of the data privacy violation. The American Medical Association clearly states that HIPAA violation enforcement and stipulates penalties for civil violations can range from $100 for unknowingly violating the HIPAA guidelines to $50,000 per reasonable violation based on the severity.
License renewal requirements for registered nurses in Texas
The Texas Board of Nursing permits the license renewal of registered nurses on a case-to-case basis. Registered nurses practicing in Texas need to renew their license every two years beginning 60 days prior to the license expiry date until the date of license expiration. The license renewal formalities include submitting an application along with an application fee of $68 and proof of completion of continuing nursing education (CNE) for at least 20 hours in the area of practice from an authorized provider. Once submitted, the board will validate the credentials and approve the license renewal within 15 working days. This license renewal procedure is applicable only to residents of Texas. Nurses from other states with multistate licensure for RN practice can work at facilities in Texas; however, the renewal policies will not be applicable. According to The 2022 National Nursing Workforce Survey conducted every two years, RN respondents were licensed for a median of 15 years, compared to 20 years in the 2020 survey. The survey also revealed 37.9% were licensed for 10 years or less, the highest since 2015.
Number of years licensed
Source: Journal of Nursing Regulation
How HR teams can streamline the certification verification process
Certificate verification is a necessary process in the pre-recruitment stage of RN hiring. It is essential to review the credibility of the certifications presented by the candidate to confirm that the candidate is competent enough to work in your facility and has acquired the essential qualifications from an accredited institution as defined by the state. It helps avoid any future legal liabilities and provides continued patient care by reducing risks. Here are some quick suggestions that can help you streamline the registered nurse certification verification process.
- Have a certification verification checklist handy to reduce any manual errors during the verification process.
- Provide detailed training to the staff on the registered nurse certification verification process.
- Leverage technologies to detect any potential frauds or mismatches in the data.
- Rather than physical record keeping, have a cloud-based storage system to document all the records submitted by the candidate so that it can be availed at any point of time in the future.
- Conduct a thorough background verification process to ensure compliance in RN hiring.
- Ask for references from previous employers to assess the validity.
- Associate with medical staffing solutions providers so that they take care of end-to-end document processing and RN credentialing.
How can facilities craft effective job descriptions?
Well-written job descriptions will help save time and ensure quality hires by attracting the top talented candidates to your facility, thereby improving organizational efficiency. Effective job descriptions can be crafted by providing a detailed description of the job duties, what it would be like to work in your facility, and the expectations from the ideal candidate. The RN’s duties and responsibilities include coordinating patient care by assessing the patient’s vital signs, administering medications, educating patients and their families about managing the disease, and providing emotional support to the patient. Clearly stating the qualifications, experience level, and certifications expected from the candidate can prevent unqualified candidates from applying for the role to a certain extent.
Briefing the additional perks and benefits of working in your facility, which includes the comprehensive compensation package, professional growth opportunities, and D&I initiatives, can enhance the attractiveness of your job description.
Always make sure that you create a customized RN job description based on the specific needs and requirements of your facility. If you are unaware of the facility-specific needs, consider getting help from your existing staff to understand them. When filling the registered nurse vacancy by contract hiring, it is ideal to specify the contract period and any important terms associated with it. Finally, marking down the step-by-step application process and a point of contact to reach out to in case of any queries can make your job description stand out in the competitive RN staffing market.
Using credentialing services by staffing agencies to hire registered nurses
To streamline the complex compliance procedures associated with hiring registered nurses, healthcare facilities can utilize the credentialing services provided by RN staffing agencies. This can greatly improve its efficiency as they have streamlined processes and dedicated tools and resources for credentialing. They will be up-to-date with the compliance guidelines, ensuring zero legal risk of RN hiring for your facility. There are a lot of healthcare staffing solutions providers around the USA that can help you with the RN credentialing process. However, an adverse side of these staffing agencies is the high markup fee they charge to hire registered nurses for your facility. You will have to spend a lot of money on their services, which might include some hidden charges as well, causing budget constraints for facilities. Also, some agencies do not provide transparency in the process, and facilities will have less control or insight into the credentialing process.
MedSquirrels has introduced a flat fee approach to navigate all these challenges of hiring RNs through traditional staffing agencies. MedSquirrels is a staffing platform utilizing AI technology at its core to streamline the process to hire registered nurses. With our platform, you get complete transparency throughout the credentialing process and track the progress of RN hiring at any stage.
The highlight of our RN staffing platform is that you will only have to pay a flat license fee along with the payroll cost of the registered nurses hired through us: no markup charged!
MedSquirrels, as a medical staffing solutions platform, can help you hire registered nurses for both contract and permanent roles and provides you with three unique hiring plans to choose from. We will take care of all your recruitment needs, from customizing job descriptions to credentialing and onboarding candidates. To know more about our plans to hire registered nurses and the costs associated with them, book a demo today.
