Healthcare Staffing: 6 Essential Services from Your Screening Vendor

Updated September 11, 2023

Finding, hiring, and staffing healthcare workers remains a significant challenge. The demand for health care roles continues to rise, but talent recruiters are seeing a decrease in the quantity of healthcare applicants. It's essential now, more than ever, to provide an efficient and user-friendly experience for candidates throughout the talent acquisition process. Doing so leads to higher candidate satisfaction and increased efficiency in your recruitment process.

Below are six services that your employment screening vendor should provide, along with program considerations to maximize benefits.

1. Rapid Screening Turnaround Times for Efficient Healthcare Staffing Decisions

In healthcare recruitment, a single day's delay in the screening turnaround time can result in a competitor filling the position. In traditional healthcare settings, a day's lag could lead to last-minute cancellations of patient appointments. Even more critical, it could result in understaffed shifts, adversely affecting patient safety and care.

Is your Third Party Administrator (TPA) assisting in identifying clinic collection sites that offer quick turnaround times? Two different collection sites, even if located just minutes apart, can vary significantly in their screening processing speed. Factors such as electronic system utilization, the competence and number of staff, and error rates play a crucial role in these clinic collector disparities.

Vault Workforce Screening's advanced software platform helps healthcare recruiters to easily search the nearly 17,000 collection site vendors based on geographic proximity, cost, and proven performance. This ensures a seamless balance between an employee's location preferences and your recruitment timeline objectives.

2. Accurate Mask Fit Testing and Overnight Shipping 

There has been a significant increase in the awareness of proper mask fit testing since the pandemic. Conducting mask fit testing during the screening process for a potential new employee helps ensure their readiness on their first day the job. Vault will ship overnight the required brand and style of mask to your chosen clinic collection site, so it arrives before your employee walks in the door. That way, proper fitting can happen while they're at the clinic to complete their other screening services.

Key questions to ask prospective background screening vendors include whether they offer overnight mask shipping, which types of masks they provide, and what their daily shipping cut off time is.

3. Human-Assisted Scheduling of Multiple, Complex Clinical Orders

Coordinating and scheduling multiple clinical screening services for a single qualified candidate can be overwhelming and time-consuming. It is a challenging and complex process when organizing over 10 different screening requirements, from complex Tuberculosis (TB) screenings, which rely on an individual's vaccination history, to comprehensive clinical services like physicals, mask fit tests, vaccines, titers, and custom drug testing panels.

Have you ever found yourself struggling with your screening vendor's software, filled with incomplete or unsuitable options? Vault’s software has a unique split-order feature, allowing you to consider spreading services across two clinics. But when you need white-glove support, Vault's US-based Service Coordination team efficiently manages complex employment screening needs, considering factors such as prospective employees travel time, clinic and performance, available services, and costs to optimize outcomes.

4. Efficient Onsite Screening Solutions for Hiring & Training Events

Today's competitive hiring landscape requires swift action to secure top talent before competitors do. Yet, staffing and recruitment teams are often swamped and don't have the luxury of managing cumbersome collection site appointments or chasing paperwork.

Ensuring a streamlined and hassle-free screening process is crucial. It is important to avoid losing potential employees due to a lengthy or frustrating screening process.

Conducting job candidate screenings at in-person hiring events or during new hire training can prevent drop-outs, but this requires meticulous planning—such as appropriate bathroom facilities for providing urine samples, chain of custody paperwork, screening technology infrastructure, adequate collection staffing, and maintaining candidate privacy.

If your current employment screening partner lacks the agility to optimize the hiring timeframe, Vault Workforce Screening can help you evaluate and tailor your screening program.

5. Comprehensive Employment Screening Program Review and Risk Management Strategies

When did you last conduct a comprehensive review of your employee screening program? Are you equipped to handle a random audit, whether internal from a client or regulator? Can you count on your current screening vendor for support and assistance during an audit? Furthermore, do your drug testing policies comply with recent changes in state and federal laws where marijuana is legal?

Vault Workforce Screening provides clients with a full suite of compliance services including:

· Direct access to compliance experts about your day-to-day challenges

· Regular compliance training webinars

· On-location team training sessions

· In-depth reviews of policies and procedures

· US-based Medical Review Officers providing expertise and guidance

· Mock audits

· Comprehensive support packages for litigation and audits

· Expert witness testimony

· Timely updates about evolving laws and regulations (state and federal)

6. Return to Work and Recovery Monitoring of Employees with Substance Use Disorders

Today's workplaces aren't immune to the challenges of substance abuse. In fact, the Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index highlighted a significant increase in substance use positivity rates from employment screenings, registering 31.4% higher than the rates a decade prior. Shockingly, the America Addiction Centers states that nearly 22.5% of Americans admit to using illegal drugs or alcohol during work hours.

In a more detailed study, Quest uncovered that federally regulated safety-sensitive workplaces witnessed a concerning trend:

After consistent declines over five years in certain drug categories, there was a marked increase in drug positivity rates. Marijuana increase 8.9% (from 0.79% in 2020 to 0.86% in 2021), amphetamines went up by 7.8% (from 0.64% in 2020 to 0.69% in 2021), and cocaine also increased by 5.0% (from 0.20% in 2020 to 0.21% in 2021).

However, there's a silver lining. Substance use is manageable and treatable. Employees who opt for recovery, especially when supported by their employers, tend to be highly committed and loyal. The National Safety Council even found in 2020 that employers supporting an employee's recovery journey can potentially save an average of $8,500.

Vault, with its vast experience spanning over three decades, offers random drug and alcohol testing for licensed professionals through partnerships with many licensure boards across the country. Our commitment extends to devising random testing programs and creating a robust return-to-work framework for team members embarking on their recovery journey with the support of their employer.

Optimize Your Healthcare Hiring with Vault's Complementary 30-Minute Screening Program Review

Vault offers a free 30-minute screening program review with our healthcare industry compliance expert team. A clearly defined program and policy ensures consistency, accuracy, and efficiency in your hiring process. Schedule today and we'll step through every aspect of your program and improvement opportunities. There is no obligation or risk involved, and you'll receive a free report you can review with team members following the consultation.

Sources:

[1] Post-Accident Workforce Drug Positivity for Marijuana Reached 25-Year High in 2022, Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index Analysis Finds

[2] Workforce Drug Test Positivity Climbs to Highest Level in Two Decades, Finds Quest Diagnostics Drug Testing Index Analysis - Mar 30, 2022

[3] The Prevalence of Substance Abuse in the Workplace (drugabuse.com)

[4] New Analysis: Employers Can Save Average of $8,500 for Supporting Each Employee in Recovery from Substance Use Disorder - National Safety Council (nsc.org)