by Clint Cummins, CEO, Memphis Medical Society and MedTemps
In the environment of healthcare staffing, you get asked for a lot of unique things. That’s why we’re in business, right? Employers, mostly Memphis Medical Society members, are struggling to find talent. Typically, it’s unique talent. Here are some quick stories of how we helped practices find their “unicorns” and how we can help your practice, too. The best part is that these new associates are indeed “unicorns” and fabulous in every way.
The “Less than an Hour” Unicorn
MedTemps gets a text (yes, we’re that accessible) at around 7:45am from a prominent East Memphis primary care clinic needing a Certified Medical Assistant with “excellent phlebotomy skills” to begin work THAT DAY.
The office manager was stressed because the clinic had an employee not show up and gave no notice. Cailyn, our Director of Healthcare Staffing, quickly consoled the office manager and went about finding someone for this practice. Fifteen minutes after the initial text, Cailyn called the office manager with someone meeting the exact specifications that the office manager needed. This MedTemps associate arrived at the door for the practice at 9am, ready and trained for work.
The “Bilingual” Unicorn
MedTemps gets a call from a large practice that focuses on the under-served in our community. The administrator needs a temporary, bilingual medical translator who alsoneeded to be a Certified Medical Assistant.
You can’t find the Bilingual Unicorn very easily, so Cailyn conducted a search using a variety of recruiting methods – online, word of mouth and our existing database. We call it the RecruitBlitz. After quickly perusing dozens of resumes, Cailyn produced two qualified candidates for the administrator and one was assigned. The entire process, from phone call to associate arriving at the clinic’s front door, was one week.
The “UFU” (Unidentified Flying Unicorn)
Sometimes you get a request for something, or someone, that you have literally never staffed before. That’s when there’s that moment of questioning “Do we have time to find this person?” occurs. At most staffing agencies, when that question is asked, the request gets put at the bottom of the list.
This one was a request for a Radiology Technician at a large orthopedic practice. To further complicate matters, this was a temporary assignment due to another employee departing for maternity leave. Radiology Technicians are very difficult to find anyway, but finding one who will accept temporary employment with no guarantee, is nearly impossible. That’s why we call this one the UFU.
Once again, MedTemps deployed its RecruitBlitz. Radiology Technicians are typically working during normal business hours, so Cailyn and her team had to recruit for this role after business hours in order to find a capable candidate.
Late-night calls, licensure/credentials verification, and (again) finding a highly-skilled associate to take a temporary assignment when they most likely have a permanent position currently: most staffing firms would’ve called off the search by now. That’s the best part of MedTemps: we were founded by Memphis Medical Society in order to serve our members. Those members need to served their patients. They need us.
The end of the story: we found two candidates to fill the need. The first one honestly wasn’t the right one for the job. The good news is that we found yet another candidate in three days. This complicated process took one month total! As a bonus, the new candidate was a veteran. Win-win!
These are just three stories that Cailyn and the MedTemps team lives every day. Call her at 901.761.0200 or email clillard@mdmemphis.org and she will help you with this level of service.
Learn more about Memphis Medical Society and MedTemps at https://www.mdmemphis.org/
