Some hospitals choose to outsource entire functions to staffing services that provide professional temps. These services need experience in interviewing, employment law, recruiting, and benefits. Human resources managers, employee relations managers, and compensation analysts are being hired as temporary employees to do projects. That means personnel offices want to keep their numbers of employees lean and a core group.
Physicians sometimes delegate the management of their offices to staffing services. The skills needed to work as a professional technical temp in a doctor's office vary. Experience with the filing of insurance claims and Medicare reimbursement is in demand today. There is also a huge demand for those skilled in accounting or finance who know how the system works for Medicare reimbursement. If you do not have experience in this area and want to learn, take advantage of any temporary assignment that will give you on the job training. Again, like anything else, it is a matter of supply and demand. There is a demand for those skilled in Medicare reimbursement and staffing services want to recruit people with these skills.
There are more and more traditional medical areas using temps, such as nurses, physical therapists, and even physician's assistants. Physician's assistants usually work with one physician, and because of this close relationship have been slow to start temping. As health care looks for a way to cut costs, this could change, and more people in clinics may be referred to physician's assistants and to nurse practitioners, whereas in the past these patients would have been referred to a doctor.
A physician may work temp in one hospital while the hospital recruits temporary doctors. There are companies that furnish medical temps nationwide.
Jack Maxwell, president of Maxwell Medical Staffing, is part of a business that places people who are physical therapists, occupational therapists, and speech therapists. His company has had to go outside the United States to fill U.S. jobs. The positions pay an average of $40,000 to $45,000 annual salary depending on education and experience. The temporary jobs pay $18 to $24 an hour depending on education and experience.
Maxwell recruits from New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Scotland, England, Israel, South Africa, and Zimbabwe to create the supply to meet the demand. Maxwell has had great success because these staffers like to travel and gain experience. Some stay, and some return home.
More than half of Maxwell's medical placements go into a temporary assignment and turn it into a permanent position. This is a win win outcome for the staffing company, because it gives Maxwell another success story and because the medical staffers who are placed refer others to Maxwell. Most people in the medical profession turn the temporary jobs into permanent ones because they have a good attitude and a can do mentality, according to Maxwell. The staffers try to fit in and do such a good job that the companies where they are temping want to create a position for them rather than lose them to another temporary job.
Many people who temp in the medical profession use the temp jobs as a way to broaden their skills and get more on the job training. Maxwell believes there will be more of a global market for those willing to work in the medical profession as temps, because of a global need for medical staffers just like other white collar professional technical temps to go to other countries and work on short and long term projects. So, if you want to travel, join the ranks of the professional technical temp.
Marion was a graduate of a physical therapist program at an accredited university in England. She had always wanted to travel and work in America, and wanted to live and work in a small town as opposed to a large city.
Marion did some research on the Internet and completed a questionnaire with a medical staffing company. She then faxed her resume to the company. After the staffing company completed reference checks and background checks on Marion, she was offered a nine month temporary assignment in a small town in Iowa. The staffing service also asked Marion to take a personality test so that the service could locate a job that would be suitable for her.
She completed the necessary legal forms to work in the United States. In other words, she provided a green card for her 1 9 form, and then flew to Iowa on a ticket provided by the staffing service and met with a representative of the service. The representative gave Marion a thorough indoctrination regarding the hospital where she would be working: dress code, work hours, where to eat, the types of personalities that worked well in the hospital, as well as the politics of the town where she would live. The staffing service also located several apartments to choose from, but Marion was responsible for paying her rent.
The staffing representative gave Marion her job description and helped her find transportation to her job. The staffing service paid for the fare, but once Marion was at the job she was on her own. She had a rough couple of first weeks. The staffing service told her about some of the people she would be working with and even shared who the service thought would be the most receptive to Marion, a foreigner, and who would not.
Small town America was nice, but Marion found it took a little while for people to make friends with her. Some of the people the staffing service told her about took her out to dinner and invited her to join their reading club. After the first month she began receiving regular invitations for social events, even dates. She also learned to take the initiative for her social life and after two months felt more at home. When the end of her assignment came up, the hospital asked the staffing service if they could hire her.
Marion had to continue to supply the legal paperwork necessary to keep working in the United States. She decided to stay on another three months as a temp, then evaluate if she wanted to stay in Iowa or work on another temporary assignment elsewhere.
The staffing service told her that many rural hospitals needed her skill as a physical therapist, and they would also work with her on relocating to a larger city if she chose to. The great thing about temping is that it allows flexibility in making a decision about going permanent. Marion still had income and benefits as a professional temp and had her freedom too.
