How Many Staff Members Do You Need?

Many physician practices struggle long and hard with finding just the right number of members to work in just right jobs at just the right time. Few practices ever master the struggle and reach staffing “utopia.” Those that do attain favorable staffing levels and stability tend to experience it only briefly.
The mistake many practices make is adopting an oversimplified and reactionary approach: If the work falls behind or one is pleading for help, they add staff. if overhead expenses grow too high, they cut personnel costs.
This backward-looking approach seldom works, creating a pendulum effect that results in having either too many or too few staff members on board. Over-staffing brings an increase in costs, but not always a corresponding increase in efficiency or quality Under-staffing can lead to decreased patient satisfaction, reduced collections and poorer financial performance.
     
So what is the secret to successful staffing? Although the answer depends greatly on hiring people whose work ethic, experience and expertise make them well suited for the job, physicians can attain a general idea of their staffing requirements by comparing their practices to industry benchmarks and making adjustments to the numbers, as needed.

How to do it

The first step in benchmarking is to find reliable sources of data for physician practices, such as the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA), Practice Support Resources (PSR), the American Medical Association (AMA) and the American Medical Group Association (AMGA), as well as local medical societies (see "Benchmarking resources" for contact information). When comparing your practice with industry performance standards, try to find data for practices similar to yours and consult at least two sources for a broader perspective.
The next step is to determine what to measure. When it comes to staffing, most practices want to know the answers to two questions: Do we have enough individuals to do the work? And are our staffing costs in line with those of other similar practices?
To answer these questions, look for benchmarks that address the following:

1. The number of support staff per full-time-equivalent (FTE) physician,
2. The percentage of gross revenue spent on support staff salaries. read more..