How to Hire and Train the Right Treatment Providers

A telltale sign of a successful practice is the fact that it’s growing, and practice growth can occur in a number of different ways. On the low-end, it may mean that your therapists are seeing more patients. This will eventually lead you to hiring more treatment providers to help to deal with the influx.

Ultimately, you may find yourself with too many patients and treatment staff for one facility, thus, you’ll be prompted move to a larger facility, or open an additional facility—this is the goal of practice growth. But at the heart of growth is staff, and in this article, we’ll be sharing some tips for how to hire the right treatment provider staff.

Leverage the web

With the proliferation of social media platforms like LinkedIn, it’s become incredibly easy to look up your potential hire’s work experience. LinkedIn is kind of like Facebook for your CV. By checking it, you’re likely to see all of their past employers, career highlights, and testimonials from colleagues and managers.

Hire experienced treatment providers

When searching for the right treatment provider, it certainly helps to hire one with experience. This doesn’t mean that you should go out and hire the treatment provider who wrote the book on patient focused care—it just means that you should look for someone who has demonstrated a couple years of commitment to the field. A treatment provider with several years on the job will be able to handle themselves in a variety of situations, and can even serve as a mentor to therapist with less experience.

Form partnerships with local post-secondary institutions

Speaking of therapists with less experience, it’s advantageous to connect with the faculty at local post-secondary institutions and introduce yourself to the next generation of treatment providers. What these students lack in experience, the make up for in drive.

Some of these students might be interested in shadowing your therapists or learning more about a day in the life of a clinic owner. And whether you allow these students to volunteer at your clinic, or you even end up hiring one, there’s a lot to be said for someone who’s willing to learn.

Hire coachable staff members

No matter how experienced the treatment provider is, a good team member is willing to take feedback and criticism. When you’re looking for a new treatment provider, it isn’t always about finding the one with the most experience or prestigious references—it’s about finding an individual with the right attitude.

No matter how much training and experience they received at their last place of employment, things might be a little different at your facility. You’ll want to be sure that this individual will be able to easily adopt your processes and acclimate themselves to your clinic’s environment.

Put training systems in place

Is there someone in your office who plays a crucial role that you’d be lost without? It might be your office manager, your managing provider, or even your front desk staff. But regardless who it is, you can’t allow your business to grind to a halt just because they unexpectedly left your clinic.

If you need to find a replacement quickly, you’ll need to train them equally fast. This can be easily achieved by creating systems and processes that can be used by your new hire, or anyone required to fill their shoes for a day. For example, you may want to create a training manual, or ask your staff members to write out their daily procedures for you.