The health insurance industry is fast-moving and ever-evolving, ripe with policy changes, seasonal fluctuations, and members who are always looking to fine tune their health plans. Because of this, health insurance companies face a number of staffing struggles—for years, it’s been difficult for them to find the specialty candidates they need.
Here are five of the most common struggles (in the form of paraphrased quotes from our clients), along with some best practices to overcome them, and what it means for your organization to work with a specialized staffing partner like Medix.
Staffing Struggle #1: Trouble Finding Experienced Talent
“It’s difficult for us to find seasoned health insurance professionals, from customer and member service representatives to claims professionals to sales representatives, which makes it challenging for us to provide optimal services to our policyholders and grow our business.”
Best Practice
Constantly pipeline and build connections, whether you keep in touch with former candidates (or even former employees who left on good terms) or identify and prepare less-seasoned staff for advanced roles in your organization.
Staffing Struggle #2: Long Amounts of Time to Fill Open Roles
“Between finding enough candidates, interviewing them, extending offers, onboarding, and everything in between, we often have open roles for months. There’s a massive opportunity cost attached to this. It compromises customer service and day-to-day operations, while also putting added stress on our current staff.”
Best Practice
This largely goes back to pipelining, so that you have a larger candidate pool from which to choose. You may also consider loosening hiring requirements. Maybe there are candidates without health insurance experience, but with insurance experience. Perhaps there are candidates who lack the quantity of experience or type of education you prefer, but they have a high aptitude for learning and promising potential.
Staffing Struggle #3: Difficulty Matching Hard and Soft Skills to Roles
“It’s easier for us to match hard skills to our openings than it is to match soft skills. It’s just tough to interview a candidate once or twice and pick up on their communication style, problem solving capabilities, and other traits that we need.”
Best Practice
Find and use tools that help assess candidates’ personalities and soft skills. While not perfect, these screening tools significantly increase the chances that you’ll hire the best fit for your business needs and culture.
Staffing Struggle #4: High Recruiting and Hiring Costs
“We’re experiencing elevated expenses related to sourcing, vetting, and onboarding new hires, which are contributing to financial strain across the organization. It’s not sustainable.”
Best Practice
Continually assess and refine your recruiting and onboarding processes. When it comes to recruiting, invest in the locations and platforms that have proven to yield the best candidates, and reign in rogue spend. For onboarding, discuss your process with employees, both new hires and HR staff. Gather feedback related to efficiencies, inefficiencies, value, and non-value, then streamline your process accordingly.
Staffing Struggle #5: Issues Adapting to Policy Changes and Seasonal Demand
“We deal with lots of policy changes and seasonal variations, including open enrollment. We need to be able to match our staff to the workload more efficiently than we have.”
Best Practice
Augment your workforce with temporary talent. Oftentimes, the lower-level jobs which require less time to ramp up are ideal for contractors or “temps.” They can incorporate themselves quickly, relieving your full-time staff, while allowing you to manage a higher-volume period. They can also help you control costs and save money, as you’re not forced to invest in full-time staff or left without any additional staff to onboard and manage new members.
Partner with Medix
What does it mean to partner with Medix? Think of partnering with us as your ultimate best practice. We can help you do the following:
- Connect your organization to a diverse, new pipeline of health insurance candidates.
- Reduce your time-to-fill rates significantly.
- Ensure that new hires not only have the technical skills to succeed, but the personalities to fit your culture.
- Cut recruiting costs and the burden on your HR department.
- Build and maintain a cost-effective, flexible workforce to scale up and down based on demand.
Regardless of your needs, we can find the right fit. We commonly fill the following roles with temp, temp-to-hire, and direct hire talent:
- Customer and Member Service Representatives
- Enrollment Specialists and Benefits Representatives
- Claims Professionals
- Provider Relations and Network Development Specialists
- Non-Licensed and Licensed Agents
- Credentialers
- Business Analysts
- Admissions Coordinators
- Intake Specialists
- Sales Representatives
- Outreach Coordinators
- Appeals and Grievances Specialists
- Administrative Assistants and Receptionists
- Data Entry Clerks
We’ve specialized in health insurance staffing for 20+ years, and over that time, we’ve developed an intimate understanding of what both employers and candidates seek. You can trust us to fill your short-term needs and be your long-term partner.
Contact us to tell us about your organization’s immediate and long-term insurance staffing needs.
