How to offer competitive pay to hire medical assistants
The rising demand for healthcare professionals has led the facilities to focus on their recruitment and retention strategies. One of the most important things to consider while framing this strategy is the medical assistants’ benefits. You can read about the complete guide on strategies to hire medical assistants here. As per the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average pay of a medical assistant is $42,000 per year. The significance of employee benefits is not just pertinent to the salary; it includes a combination of other factors that constitute the total reward package of an employee. The major causative factor for the shortage of medical assistants in facilities is the burned-out and unsatisfied staff. Hence, it is important to lay down a comprehensive compensation policy that can improve the overall satisfaction of the employee by focusing on their well-being, rewards, and career accomplishments.
Competitive compensation packages can increase your employer brand and enhance the visibility of your facility, helping you to stand out in the competitive medical assistant staffing market. This can attract competitive talent while also facilitating employee retention. Addressing concerns and proper recognition from the employer can motivate the staff, leading to a productive workforce. Thus, the facilities need to take the utmost care while crafting the medical assistant compensation package as this can impact the long-term association between the employer and employee.
What should you include in your compensation and benefits package?
While emphasizing the importance of providing a comprehensive compensation package for medical assistants, it is important to analyze and understand the medical assistant staffing market to frame the right package for your employees. A set of factors including the monetary and non-monetary benefits need to be considered while drafting the medical assistant compensation. Given below are some of the important elements to include in your compensation and benefits package to attract and retain competent medical assistants in your facility.
- Competitive salary: Salary is the prime component of the compensation package. When hiring a medical assistant, evaluating the market to understand the region-wise demand and the pay scale is required to supply a competitive and compelling salary. In addition, regularly revising the medical assistant salary packages can help retain them for the long term.
- Incentives: Incentives are part of the additional monetary benefits provided along with the base salary to increase employee satisfaction and recognize their efforts. Allowance for overtime work, shifts, travel, and relocation along with other performance-based incentives will make your compensation package more appealing to prospective candidates.
- Professional development opportunities: Establishing a clear career progression pathway by conveying the performance evaluation criteria and executing career development programs can help you retain competent staff in the domain. The professional development opportunities can include providing on-the-job training, mentorship programs, and encouraging employees to upskill. It is also important that you provide constructive performance feedback to improve their skill sets.
- Wellness plans: Employee welfare needs to be prioritized by implementing policies that are essential to improve the work satisfaction of the employees. This can include free health checkups, medical insurance, retirement plans, in-office creche facilities for working parents, etc.
- Recognition and reward programs: Ensure that you have effective programs to acknowledge the remarkable contributions of your employees. Rewarding employees for their performance can increase their motivation and supplement the drive to work for your facility. Moreover, recognizing employees who have achieved notable career milestones can improve productivity while also cultivating a supportive work environment.
- Proper leave policy: As more emphasis is placed on work-life balance to address staff burnout, a proper leave policy helps to ensure work-life balance. Implementing flexible shifts, having an adequate workforce, and providing paid time off are some suggestable measures that can help you quickly hire medical assistants. This is one of the important benefits for employees that not only enables a healthy work environment but also contributes to long-term staff retention.
Essential qualities to look for when hiring a medical assistant
Medical assistants have an intermediary role in interacting with patients and other allied health professionals in their day-to-day roles. Therefore, when you hire medical assistants, it becomes necessary to evaluate various aspects of their technical expertise and soft skills to understand their fit for your facility. The practical exposure of the candidate and their aptitude in various medical technologies can be assessed to understand their technical competency. Even though technical qualities are mandatory, there are some essential soft skills to look for in a potential candidate that can distinguish them from other candidates. Some of them include:
- A detail-oriented medical assistant with problem-solving abilities can help maintain accuracy in patients’ health records and precisely monitor the vital symptoms of patients.
- Effective communication skills are vital for medical assistants to communicate with patients and boost awareness among them.
- Like any other healthcare professional, empathy and active listening skills are necessary for medical assistants to address the patient’s concerns.
- As medical assistants also work on certain administrative tasks like record keeping, administrative skills are a primary requirement.
- Adaptability and willingness to work in flexible shifts also need to be checked in advance.
- Hire medical assistants who will be a team player and can work well in a dynamic team.
Retaining medical assistants: strategies for building a loyal team
A simpler yet effective way to handle the staffing gap in your healthcare facility is by appointing measures to retain the existing medical assistants. This can significantly reduce the huge hiring costs and administrative workload associated with hiring new medical assistants. Here is a quick overview of some of the strategies that can be established to build a loyal team in your facility by retaining medical assistants.
- Revise the compensation package by evaluating the market standards and demand every year.
- Establish proper rewards and recognition programs.
- Provide career development opportunities.
- Ensure culture fit when you hire medical assistants.
- Implement flexible shifts to avoid overworking of staff.
- Evaluate the need to hire more staff to support existing staff during peak seasons.
Leverage MedSquirrels platform to hire medical assistants
Framing a competitive compensation package considering all the factors mentioned above can be a bit challenging for facilities. However, if an effective compensation package is once drafted, it not only helps you attract the right talent for your facility but also helps retain them. This one-time investment can save a huge amount of money for your facility over time. Many facilities hire medical assistants through multiple MSPs and middle layers, for which a substantial fee is charged by them for the recruitment process. A more efficient way to sort this problem is to associate with a reputed medical assistant staffing solutions provider. However, it is important to note that most of these agencies demand huge markup fees, which can lead to the facilities going off their budget to hire medical assistants. This will cause a scenario where the facilities are forced to pay medical assistants salaries that are below market standards or provide compensation packages that are not competitive enough.
To address these issues with traditional staffing to hire medical assistants, MedSquirrels has come up with a flat-fee approach to revolutionize the healthcare staffing industry. Here, the facility will only be charged a flat fee along with the payroll cost. This flat fee will only depend on the service that you avail from the MedSquirrels platform, with the option for you to choose your preferred plan. Thereby, MedSquirrels helps your medical assistants get paid fairly above the market standards, encouraging a happier and more dedicated workforce. To know more about the medical assistant hiring plans available at MedSquirrels, book a demo today.
