The Path to Owning It
25. Is a remote workforce the answer to your staffing woes?
With Christine Sison
Finding, recruiting, and retaining talented staff is one of the hottest topics in the healthcare industry right now (and seemingly everywhere else for that matter).
With labor posing one of the biggest challenges most practice owners face today, we're exploring an unconventional new solution that’s gaining popularity in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic: remote staffing for dental practices.
Meet our guest
Our guest, Christine Sison, is CEO at Swiss Monkey, an operations and staffing organization that provides virtual front desk and recruitment services for dental practices. Prior to that, she spent more than 10 years building and managing a dental practice, and she is the former executive director of a public-private healthcare collaborative, where she led the development of telemedicine efforts.
In this episode
- How practice owners can use remote staffing services to fill key needs, make on-site staff happier and more productive, and improve margins
- Which positions are ideally suited for remote staffing and which are best left on-site
- Why remote staffing has become so popular among both practice owners and employees
- What practice owners can expect to pay for remote staff
- What key lessons she has learned in her career that help her serve her clients' needs
Episode transcript
A lot of our managers, our doctors, are struggling to figure out, "Hey, how do we now deal with a new generation that have very different expectations with work?" We've been able to marry saying, "Hey, you can have both, but we do need to adjust how we think about staffing, and that book of goods that you were sold in terms of how to run a practice 10 years ago, it's different."
I'm Corey Brown, and this is Provide's The Path to Owning It Podcast, where we sit down with trusted industry experts in Provide's network to give you the tools and advice you need to take your practice ownership dreams into your own hands, from owning your own practice, to expanding or improving an existing practice. We'll help pave the way for you to achieve your dental or veterinary career dreams and guide you through all the nuances of the practice ownership journey. Please make sure to follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you listen. Today I'm here at the California Dental Association Convention in Anaheim, California and I'm thrilled to be joined by Christine Sison. Christine is CEO at Swiss Monkey, an operations and staffing organization that provides virtual front desk and recruitment services for dental practices.
Before launching Swiss Monkey, Christine spent more than 10 years building and managing a dental practice. Prior to her work in dentistry, she conducted brain tumor research at the University of California, San Francisco, assisted in the integration of health information technology into clinics and hospitals, and also served as the executive director at a public-private healthcare collaborative where she led the development of community-wide systems including telemedicine efforts. Christine, welcome to our show. We're so happy to have you today.
Before launching Swiss Monkey, Christine spent more than 10 years building and managing a dental practice. Prior to her work in dentistry, she conducted brain tumor research at the University of California, San Francisco, assisted in the integration of health information technology into clinics and hospitals, and also served as the executive director at a public-private healthcare collaborative where she led the development of community-wide systems including telemedicine efforts. Christine, welcome to our show. We're so happy to have you today.
Yeah, I'm so excited. You did a great job. You got the last name right. I feel like-
We're on.
We're in. It's go time. It's Thursday, so-
I think I'm just pumped being here at the live show. I mean it's pretty electric here today. How's it been for you? What's the vibe? What are you seeing?
Yeah, I mean it's been a great show. Lots of traffic here. I'm excited. I mean, I think obviously since the pandemic, I never take it for granted now. I love seeing all the partners. I love being able to do stuff like this, too. I mean, I love Zoom, it's been nice, but there's nothing like giving somebody a hug and saying, "Hey, how are you doing? Grabbing a drink at happy hour. So it's been awesome.
Yeah, I know. It's been awesome to reconnect with everybody. Let's get back to you. I mean that was a pretty impressive background. Tell me, how did you go from brain tumor research to building and managing a dental practice to ultimately founding your own operations and staffing organization?
You know, I ask myself that every day. How did I get to this point? What happened here? So my background prior to dentistry, I was in the medical side and working with the hospitals and clinics and I got into dentistry because my husband is a dentist, to kind of get sucked into the dental vortex. And so, when he opened up his practice about 12 years ago, I helped to build the practice and that's really where Swiss Monkey was kind of born, was helping that team do staffing. And then we really started to then take that same model saying, "Hey, if our team needs staff, there must be other doctors that need that same thing, too." So we kind of evolved from staffing to other front desk services and then now it's a full-blown virtual front desk services and technology. So it's kind of this weird slippery slope and all of a sudden before you know it, you have this other company called Swiss Monkey and here we are.
Yeah, that's amazing. Why do you think that we're having well-known trouble currently trying to find and staff these sorts of positions? What do you think that stems from? Is that all from the pandemic?
I think anyone that's run a dental practice is staffing is challenging, right?
Yeah.
It was hard before the pandemic and it's definitely not easier after, in fact, I think it's a lot harder. But what I think what's different now is that we have new resources and new models to address some of the staffing issues. We know that the new generation, the Gen Z's, the millennials, they're now the largest workforce in the US. The baby booms are starting to transition out. And I think what we used to take for granted was that we used to say, "Okay, that's fine." But the reality is this new generation has a very different relationship with work. They want better work-life balance. They want to work from anywhere. They want to have independence, they want to make more. They don't want to spend five years before a promotion. And I think that's what we used to be sold before, we're just not used to it. Like, what do you mean you want a promotion in one year or six months? What do you mean you want to work from home?
And so I think a lot of our managers, our doctors are struggling to figure out, "Hey, how do we now deal with a new generation that have very different expectations with work, how much they want to work, where they want to work? And so, I think at Swiss Monkey we've been able to marry saying, "Hey, you can have both", but we do need to adjust how we think about staffing, and that book of goods that you were sold in terms of how to run a practice 10 years ago, it's different. And it's not bad. It's just that you can't bury your head in the sand and say, "Hey, we're going to run it the way it was", because it's just different. People want it different, they want some more flexibility, they want some more autonomy. And if you can embrace that and be open to it, you can really tap into an entire market of people that are ready to come back to work.
And so I think a lot of our managers, our doctors are struggling to figure out, "Hey, how do we now deal with a new generation that have very different expectations with work, how much they want to work, where they want to work? And so, I think at Swiss Monkey we've been able to marry saying, "Hey, you can have both", but we do need to adjust how we think about staffing, and that book of goods that you were sold in terms of how to run a practice 10 years ago, it's different. And it's not bad. It's just that you can't bury your head in the sand and say, "Hey, we're going to run it the way it was", because it's just different. People want it different, they want some more flexibility, they want some more autonomy. And if you can embrace that and be open to it, you can really tap into an entire market of people that are ready to come back to work.
Why use a staffing agency, I guess, as opposed to trying to find your own talent through platforms like Indeed or Monster, that sort of thing?
When you are down a person or you're expanding or you need all hands on deck, you could use staffing agencies, you can use companies like us, but what I found for most of my doctors, is that when you're down a person, you are already very busy, and sometimes you don't need another technology platform. You actually need someone to do the work for you. Don't get me wrong, they're very, very helpful. I have a big proponent of technology. We use Indeed to help find our people, as well. But sometimes that's only half of the picture. And so the doctors and the managers that we work with saying, "Hey, we worked with Indeed, we worked with all of these pieces. It's not successful. Then what are our options?" And that's where we just provide that additional kind of resource for them to fill that position a little bit more quickly.
Yeah. How do you go about recruiting your own talent in today's environment?
We're providing virtual front desk services. So we are really focused on being an operational resource in that end. And because now we are getting talent that work from anywhere, work from home, we don't necessarily have a talent issue. In fact, we have actually more talent that are ready to be deployed faster because now we have people that are like, "Hey, I want to work from home. I want to work an extra two hours a day. I want to work on the weekends." So talent for us is less of an issue as to find... now it's just matching them with the doctors, and helping the doctors in my offices understand how to use contingent talent, how to use fractional staffing.
So the majority of our doctors tend to use us for front desk services that are more two to six hours worth of work. So not necessarily full-time. Obviously we want full-time, but the reality is like you might not need a full-time team member to answer the phones the entire time. You might just need it for your heavy days, or maybe you need someone to do hygiene care just for five hours a day, three days a month. So we are really, I think kind of helping our doctors like-size their staffing, and then that way you're not overpaying. I call it the Goldilocks approach. Just right now, if you only need 20 hours a week, use that. You can use a fractional offsite team member. It's hard to do that with an onsite full-time team member. And now you have kind of excess fat if you will, staffing wise, and you've got to figure out how to utilize that. So we're trying to kind of marry like, "Hey, what do you actually need done? And can we actually use a fractional team member remotely to actually execute that task?"
So the majority of our doctors tend to use us for front desk services that are more two to six hours worth of work. So not necessarily full-time. Obviously we want full-time, but the reality is like you might not need a full-time team member to answer the phones the entire time. You might just need it for your heavy days, or maybe you need someone to do hygiene care just for five hours a day, three days a month. So we are really, I think kind of helping our doctors like-size their staffing, and then that way you're not overpaying. I call it the Goldilocks approach. Just right now, if you only need 20 hours a week, use that. You can use a fractional offsite team member. It's hard to do that with an onsite full-time team member. And now you have kind of excess fat if you will, staffing wise, and you've got to figure out how to utilize that. So we're trying to kind of marry like, "Hey, what do you actually need done? And can we actually use a fractional team member remotely to actually execute that task?"
Yeah, that's so smart. We're going to dive into remote work a little bit more after the break, but I'm curious, are there any sort of minimum requirements that are needed to be a professional in your network?
A majority of our team members have five plus years of dental experience. I think for us that is really important. It's harder, it's not impossible, but it is harder to train someone with no dental experience, remotely. It doesn't mean that it can't be done, but it's just a little bit heavier lift. And so for us, typically my doctors, I say, "Hey, if you're going to do this, let's start off with easy wins. Let's find someone with dental experience, someone that knows your software", and it tends to be a nicer kind of integration of the model. It doesn't mean that you can't, but it is more challenging, especially because they are remote.
And do you have training programs that your professionals go through?
So it depends on the office. We can either train your team member, or a lot of my doctors actually like to train their team member because they're like, "Hey, you know what? This is my office. This is how we answer the phones. This is how we do our billing."
It can be very different office, right?
Yes. And you'll be surprised how different they are. And that's one of the things that was really interesting to me is that, getting to this business, I used to think they were best, and there are, best practices. But you'll be surprised how many flavors of offices that we run across and it's great. I mean that's one of the things I think dentists love, is they come into this because they can build something that's theirs, that has their own kind of unique characteristics.
So dentists will have the ability to come in and kind of customize that training specific to their practice.
Absolutely.
I think that's so important. Where do you kind of see the future of healthcare practice staffing heading? What's next?
Onsite talent, absolutely. That is the gold standard, but I do feel like we're going to see a greater proportion of the P&L being dedicated to technology, 'cause I do feel like we are understaffed in the US so I think there's a huge play for technology to automate certain tasks that probably do it better than a human. But we kind of then shift to saying, "Hey, what now work is left done for human capital", and I feel like we're going to see an upskilling in the talent on sites, and I'm going to see doctors really looking and embracing the use of remote talent, both in the US but also looking at, "Hey, how do we deliver the service even cheaper using overseas team members?" So, the question I say is, "Do you want to be paying kind of top level dollars for insurance verification when it's not patient-facing and all I'm really doing is completing a form?" So those are the things I think we're helping to educate our doctors, how to integrate a hybrid team, how to use it, but also what kind of blend do you need?
And just how to be efficient with your payroll sources.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Well, Christine, we've talked about how the need for staffing has evolved over recent years, but when we come back, I'd love to pick your brain more about how using remote teams could be the solution our listeners have been searching for.
Absolutely. I'm excited.
More with Christine right after this break. I'm Corey Brown and this is Provide: The Path to Owning It podcast. We're back with Christine Sison, CEO of Swiss Monkey to discuss if employing a team of remote employees is the right answer for your healthcare practice. Christine, we're hearing about this a lot kind of recently. You hinted at it earlier. How are practices using remote teams successfully?
I'll kind of give you the rainbow flavors in terms of how people can use it. So, anything not patient-facing, you can technically do offsite, but I tell people just because you have a hammer doesn't mean everything is a nail. Not everything should be taken offsite. You can, and we do have some doctors that have completely virtual front desks, no one in the front... because I don't think it's ideal. You can work in areas where it's maybe a rural provider talent's really challenging. Maybe a startup environment, a small practice, one doctor, one assistant with they're cross trained, or in when you have a situation where we had one doctor, five people resigned in one day. No notice. They were just gone. So in that case-
That happens.
It does. And in that case then, we bring everything remotely and then when they start to hire back onsite, then we kind of transition everything back in. I would say the majority of my offices will say, "Hey, we just need someone two to six hours, maybe three to four days a week doing a very specific thing, answering phones, doing hygiene re care, helping with scheduling, following up with insurance", and then as they need to, they can always titrate up if they need. But sometimes that extra two to three hours that you give back to your team, all of a sudden people start to like their job more. And now all of a sudden you start to not feel so stressed out, the managers feel like, "Oh, hey, I can get to my to-do list." So we really work very closely with the doctors and their managers and their teams to make sure you're building a team that makes sense for your office because every team is so different, right?
Yeah.
It's highly reflective based on the kind of talent you have on site. If you have a very strong onsite talent, you might not need a big heavy team on offsite, but if you have someone that's brand new to dentistry because someone left and they have no dental experience, I might need to connect you to someone that has a high level of expertise. So what's nice about what we're doing is, it is kind of an ecosystem they can tap into and they can kind of ebb and flow as they need to with their practice. So it gives them the flexibility to not feel like you're stuck in a contract because we know when you run a practice, things change and you want to have the flexibility to move.
Talk to me about how that feedback loop works, between you, the office, and their needs in real time.
I think what we did wrong before, because this is not a new model, this is when you think of outsourcing, this has been done in dental, it's been done in a lot of industries, but I think what we've really been laser focused on, is how do you build an offsite team where you don't lose the sacredness of the patient experience? We're not a widget company. We want to make sure, "Hey, our patients know us, this is our community." And you can do it, but you got to do it deliberately.
And so, one of the things that we've been doing over the last five years is collecting the best practices. How do we create transparency? How do you create real time communication? We huddle with our offsite team members just like you huddle with your on-site team members. So we really try to take some of the things that we've learned to do this well, and we give our doctors that same kind of blueprint and their managers because there is a way that you need to do this, otherwise it's going to feel transactional. That's not bad. But most of my managers feel like they want something that feels like, "Hey, when you talk to my patient, I want them to know you're here for a long time, that Joe is a patient and his daughter just graduated." So we try to make sure that there's some training involved there. There's a handoff and we're trying to memorialize a lot of that information of the practice offsite so that there's some redundancy.
And so, one of the things that we've been doing over the last five years is collecting the best practices. How do we create transparency? How do you create real time communication? We huddle with our offsite team members just like you huddle with your on-site team members. So we really try to take some of the things that we've learned to do this well, and we give our doctors that same kind of blueprint and their managers because there is a way that you need to do this, otherwise it's going to feel transactional. That's not bad. But most of my managers feel like they want something that feels like, "Hey, when you talk to my patient, I want them to know you're here for a long time, that Joe is a patient and his daughter just graduated." So we try to make sure that there's some training involved there. There's a handoff and we're trying to memorialize a lot of that information of the practice offsite so that there's some redundancy.
And I would think that's the exact concern or fear that most employers would be leery about if doing remote working where accountability, PHI security. So how do you help them overcome that concern?
So the first thing you do is you acknowledge it, because it is absolutely scary. There we are. It is a remote team, it's a digital infrastructure. You have to have their proper securities in place. Everyone needs to sign certain things, needs to know the protocol of signing it. So once you get some of the logistics and some of those pieces taken care of, because that's important, you need to talk about, people are nervous about offsite team members. Are they here to take your job? Why do we have this? Am I not doing my job well? And so that's why when we do this, there is an approach that we use that absolutely has to bring the team in, because they might not even need this, right?
Yeah.
It's like a tool. If your office feels like they can hit the goals that you need, don't use an offsite team. You might not even need it. But if for some reason you're trying to get from $150,000 a month to $200,000 and your team's like, "Hey, I can't do that, because I'm on the phone with insurance all day long." You might say, "Well, why don't we get you an assistant to help take that off your plate so that you can call unscheduled treatment." So it's really working hand in hand with your team to make sure, "Hey, we're building something that is a collaborative approach that makes sense for the team, too." Because while a doctor can drive this, you don't get the synergy that the model can actually give to you. So it's a collaborative approach. We build a team in partnership with the office.
Do you set up the remote worker with infrastructure and technology on behalf of the provider? How does that work?
What's really exciting for me is, we work with a lot of people who have been in dentistry for a long period of time. I want something different. I've been here for 30 years. I want to be able to share my talents with people, not just within my vicinity. We work a lot with mothers who are like, "Hey, I want to take my kids to work." When COVID hit, it took a hit on women and especially single parents. I think what's been exciting for me, is that we've been able to welcome back that part of the working labor market and say, "Hey, you can be both a professional and a working parent and you can do a really great job."
So, we do provide them best practices, we help them set up their workstation, how to work remotely, how to set up a schedule, and how to create, I think, the communication with their onsite team because it can feel very lonely being in your living room or your little office by yourself. So maintaining and building a culture over a distributed team is hard. So it does need to be done deliberately, but it's super important. So that's something that we work with both the doctors and the onsite team members so that they can make sure they don't lose that, and they can maintain that even though they're not in the same space.
So, we do provide them best practices, we help them set up their workstation, how to work remotely, how to set up a schedule, and how to create, I think, the communication with their onsite team because it can feel very lonely being in your living room or your little office by yourself. So maintaining and building a culture over a distributed team is hard. So it does need to be done deliberately, but it's super important. So that's something that we work with both the doctors and the onsite team members so that they can make sure they don't lose that, and they can maintain that even though they're not in the same space.
I remember that being in charge of a dental call center during COVID, where we all of a sudden were forced into working remotely. And we weren't obviously very prepared to do that. We had a chat feature between all of us, so we were in constant communication. If we didn't have that, I don't know what we would do.
Because you are social creatures, right?
Yeah.
You want to feel connected. I mean, it's nice you get to wake up, maybe be in your sweats and then start to do your work. And so I do feel like one of the really cool things about remote, we see the attrition rates are a lot lower because likely because they're not having 30, 40 minute, one hour commute. People can balance their work-life. So I think that's really interesting it's a good resource for people to have.
You hinted at some of these earlier, but what positions within a healthcare practice are typically the most successful for remote workers?
So what I found is that, when you're thinking about this model, when you want to prioritize things that are low easy tasks. You don't want to outsource unless you really need to, like auditing a schedule or treatment planning presentation. You can if you have to. But things that tend to make a lot more sense are things like hygiene, we care calls, reservation reminders, insurance verification, insurance aging, answering phones.
Those are things that usually go off to the wayside when you get busy.
Exactly. And the way I like to think about it is that you want to have your team do patient-facing revenue generating activities. It doesn't make sense for them to be on the phone with insurance for 45 minutes. So you want to make sure you're not outsourcing or having your remote team member do the most difficult thing. It doesn't make a lot of sense. You want to ask your onsite team like, "Hey, what's keeping you from doing the harder things?" And then pull that out. You can, but you tend to see more error, right?
Yeah.
Because it is, it's harder. It's a remote team member. It's different. And so, one of the things that we're really clear about is, that this is not a replacement for an onsite team member. The gold standard is that, of course, you want someone on site that's there, that's consistent, that knows what they're doing.
And in your opinion, what's the right balance of onsite versus offsite team members for a typical dental practice or veterinary hospital?
I like redundancy in phones because I don't like... you know, you spend so much money marketing, you talk to patients to refer people to you, and all of a sudden you finally do it and then you can't answer your phone. So I think phones is a big deal. I like for you to have a secondary on phones. Insurance aging, insurance verification, some of the reservation reminders. You can start there and I'll tell you, just doing those few things for 70% of my practices, that is enough. Just like take two to three things off your plate, it saved your on onsite team two to three hours. And I'll tell you, a lot of them are like, "Oh, I can breathe again." And all of a sudden now they have things where now they can focus on how to grow your practice. I worked in the front. I know you have too. Your doctor's asking you to think about how to grow the schedule, but it's really hard when you're like, "Man, I forgot to call that patient back yesterday", or "I forgot to stand out this claim."
And then someone's in front of you.
And someone's in front of you-
Giving money.
In front of you and the insurance and it's just... I think for a lot of my doctors and my managers, we need to give our team the time to think about growth, and they can't do it when it's so chaotic. So if you could give them a little space to just kind of enjoy their job again, and then they can kind of get back to growing their practice, I think that's a really nice kind of balance.
Would this be a space too, if the doctor had a special project that they wanted to do but just could never get the time right?
Yeah. Absolutely. Because there are a lot of things, like we have a lot of doctors migrating to different softwares. We had a doctor with half a million dollars of insurance aging. So you don't need to hire a brand new team member. You need a team for about three months, let's get it down, and you're done. Or someone's gone for maternity leave for three months, it's hard to ask someone to leave their full-time job to come cover your stuff for three to four months. So those are things, like contract work, maternity leave, vacations, part-time projects. So think about maybe using an offsite team member that can help you do that. That way you're not paying the payroll expenses, you're not having to go through the employment. You know it's a very specific timeframe.
What if the new hire doesn't work out?
Sometimes it doesn't work out. And I'll say anyone that's done staffing in any industry, you try to ask as many questions as you can to try to predict what the future performance of that person is. And usually it works most of the time, but sometimes things don't work out. Sometimes the doctor or the team just like, "I thought I needed this, but actually, I really need someone more senior", because we'll get doctors saying, "I just need someone to answer the phone that I don't need them to have dental experience." And then all of a sudden you get someone and they're like-
That's so tough.
"No, I need someone with dental experience." So it depends on why. But for us, we want them to be happy. It doesn't make any sense for us to not make sure that you have the right team member. So we'll do everything we can to get that fit right. And if we don't, of course we're going to try to get you somebody else that's a better fit for the office.
Yeah. We've talked a lot about remote work, but do staffing agencies like Swiss Monkey also offer onsite options?
Yeah, absolutely. Not everything can be brought off site. Dental assist, all the clinical pieces, as well. And you do need someone to check in and check out your patients. You need... I mean, you want someone who knows how to present a high level treatment plan and you don't want your patient to wait. Like they're ready. You want every patient walking out with a treatment plan. So, absolutely, if they need help, we are basically that additional resource for them if they need some additional hands to really get through all those resumes and start to market it.
What is the going rate for front desk help in today's environment?
Our range here is anywhere between 15 to $27. Pure expense. That's pretty good. I mean, especially here. We're in California, so that my doctors get very excited about it. It depends on what they're looking for. So we had a doctor where she was going through embezzlement, so there was a lot. It was a very complex kind of engagement with us. We needed someone with a high level of expertise. So for that we were going to pay a higher premium just because you need someone who knows what they're doing. If it's just answering phones, taking a message, if we can get someone that sounds really nice on the phone that we can train and maybe you're paying at the lower end of the spectrum. And then we have some doctors that they are more clinic style practices. They want the lowest way to deliver the service. An offshore team might be a better fit. We're going to go with what's best for them and what they want. And so the blend might be depending on kind of what their goal is.
What would you say are the best practices for building a contingent workforce?
This is not like exchanging glove brand A, for glove brand B. You're breaking a system and you're going to have a new model. And so when you go into this, you have to understand, "Hey, we're going to be very deliberate and we want to do this." Sometimes you're forced to do it because all of a sudden you have no front desk team member. And I would say 70% of my doctors come to you because they're an emergency need, like someone left. They've been having staffing issues for the last six months. They're tired. But I would say best practice wise, have a really clear vision about what you want.
And that's where conversations with us is going to be helpful. Because a lot of my docs, "It sounds really good, but what I actually, what can I do? What should I do?" And every office is very different. But I would say we need to have an idea of what we want to do, what kind of skill set we need. And I would say start small. Some of my doctors are very excited, "I don't trust my team. Let's get rid of all of them." It's not a good idea, because it is very disruptive.
But I would say this, if you can commit yourself to the model, you create some redundancy. And what's really nice is if worst case scenario, someone doesn't show up, we can remote it and we can run that office. That is a big deal for a private practice doctor and office manager, because we see a lot of my doctors, sometimes their pencil's down too early, they sell out and they're basically transitioning out. They retire too early, the managers leave, they just feel like they're tired. This is like a game of attrition. It's okay to have staffing issues the first five years of your practice, 10 or 15 years into this-
And that's where conversations with us is going to be helpful. Because a lot of my docs, "It sounds really good, but what I actually, what can I do? What should I do?" And every office is very different. But I would say we need to have an idea of what we want to do, what kind of skill set we need. And I would say start small. Some of my doctors are very excited, "I don't trust my team. Let's get rid of all of them." It's not a good idea, because it is very disruptive.
But I would say this, if you can commit yourself to the model, you create some redundancy. And what's really nice is if worst case scenario, someone doesn't show up, we can remote it and we can run that office. That is a big deal for a private practice doctor and office manager, because we see a lot of my doctors, sometimes their pencil's down too early, they sell out and they're basically transitioning out. They retire too early, the managers leave, they just feel like they're tired. This is like a game of attrition. It's okay to have staffing issues the first five years of your practice, 10 or 15 years into this-
You get worn out.
You get tired. Exactly. I was tired. My husband... I mean, it gets... you get tired, and it's a big deal when you have a staffing change. Training is tough. It's really impactful on the morale of the office. So that's something we'll walk through with the doctors and their team in terms of like, "Hey, how do you really build this and what do you need?" Start off small. Let's build trust in the model. Make sure you have everything you need to be successful here, too. And then we can build up if we need to.
I think that's definitely worth at least just a conversation. Like you said, not waiting till you're in an emergency situation. Patients sometimes do, when they come in and need a tooth pulled or whatever. So let's get into the nitty-gritty a little bit. What are the costs of services and contract length for a healthcare provider?
So for us, there's a recruitment fee. So basically my doctor might say, "Hey, this is what I'm looking for. This is how many hours the skill set." So we have a recruitment fee of like 699 and it usually lasts about a month. We're able to actually find people very quickly. It's not like traditional recruiting where it takes a longer period of time. That kind of obviously depends on how many people, but I would say within three to six weeks we can interview, train, and hire. And then there's really, for us, we have a technology and management fee. It's a few hundred dollars a month and then we bill hourly. It's a nice easy way. You know exactly how much you're paying for how many hours. There's no surprises based on variability. And you can add. So for us, there's the technology management fee just to have the blueprint for having it, and then it's the cost of your team member.
Okay. That's very straightforward.
That's easy, right?
Yeah. Perfect.
I think simple is always better.
So if any of our listeners would like to use Swiss Monkey to help them build their team, how should they contact you?
You can obviously call my cell if you want to, but I would say our website probably is the best way. Swiss monkey.io and then there's a contact form there, fill it out. They can call or text our office number. We're on Facebook. We're on Instagram. We're on all of the social media platforms, probably, except for TikTok. We're not really there quite yet.
That's a hard one to master, I think.
I don't know. And involves dancing. I think it's a lot of stuff. I'm just not... scared I'm going to get injured though, but-
Okay. Well, Christine, thanks for sharing your valuable insights on how to help solve the staffing problems many offices are experiencing today. You gave our listeners a lot to consider and we just really appreciate your time.
Hey, thank you so much for having me.
Absolutely.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Path to Owning It. If you're ready to take your practice ownership dreams into your own hands, be sure to visit getprovide.com to pre-qualify and browse our practice marketplace, or check out our news page for more helpful resources. The Path to Owning It is brought to you by the team of Provide with production assistance from Sarah Parky and Slide Nine Agency. And it's produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses. Podcamp media.com. Producer Dusty Weis, Editor Will Henry. For Provide, I'm Corey Brown, thanks for being on the journey with us.
Thank you for joining us for this episode of The Path to Owning It. If you're ready to take your practice ownership dreams into your own hands, be sure to visit getprovide.com to pre-qualify and browse our practice marketplace, or check out our news page for more helpful resources. The Path to Owning It is brought to you by the team of Provide with production assistance from Sarah Parky and Slide Nine Agency. And it's produced by Podcamp Media, branded podcast production for businesses. Podcamp media.com. Producer Dusty Weis, Editor Will Henry. For Provide, I'm Corey Brown, thanks for being on the journey with us.
It's your birthday?
Yeah!
Provide, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Fifth Third Bank, National Association. All opinions expressed by the participant are solely their current opinions and do not reflect the opinions of Provide, its affiliates, or Fifth Third Bank. The participant’s opinions are based on information they consider reliable, but neither Provide, its affiliates nor Fifth Third Bank warrant its completeness or accuracy and should not be relied upon as such. This content is for informational purposes and does not constitute the rendering of legal, accounting, tax, or investment advice, or other professional services by Provide or any of its affiliates. Please consult with appropriate professionals related to your individual circumstances. All lending is subject to review and approval.
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