Keeping your private clinic functioning and on a steady growth trajectory depends mainly on providing excellent patient care and completing one well-planned project after the next.

However, when it comes to small clinics and private practices, having a limited number of staff members with less expertise can stand in the way of completing new projects, reaching new milestones, and jumping hurdles along the way. For example, it can result in staff members overburdening themselves while working in areas they aren't familiar with. When hiring new staff for a project that won't last for more than a few months isn't an option, staff augmentation may solve your problem.

What is the Staff Augmentation Model?

Staff augmentation is the strategy of outsourcing a small portion of your staffing power. Augmentation can help you achieve specific business objectives or complete particular projects where you don't have enough people or a well-experienced team.

This model lets you temporarily hire the help of skilled individuals. Doing so ensures high-quality, specialized work and prevents your staff from feeling overworked or outside their area of expertise. Augmentation also helps you avoid hiring new staff members for just a few weeks, all the while allowing you to cut back on costs by up to 60 percent.

Pros & Cons of Staff Augmentation

Just like other business approaches and strategies, staff augmentation has its pros and cons. It's up to you to weigh them against each other to reach a final decision that best suits your clinic's needs. Some advantages of staff augmentation include:

● Fewer In-house Staff Members– The total cost drops since you won't have to accommodate more staff members and their required job benefits.

● Lack of Geographical Limitations– With staff augmentation, your temporary staff members can often work remotely, allowing you access to a larger pool of expertise and choices from around the country or world.

● Focused Expertise– Unlike in-house staff with numerous responsibilities to attend to, the outsourced team can specialize in one area or project and dedicate all their time and energy to mastering it.

A few disadvantages of staff augmentation include:

● Time– Bringing on new staff members, even if temporary, may require more time to manage their tasks, introduce them to the project, to your staff, and how things work at your office.

● Stressed Communication– As outsiders, they might have difficulty communicating with you and your in-house staff members. Also, if they work remotely, then different time-zones and unavailability in the office could hinder communication if not done carefully.

● Lack of Familiarity– New staff members need to familiarize themselves with the project they're working on and the desired business goal to deliver results. Sometimes, it takes augmented staff members time to see the big picture.

How Would Staff Augmentation Work for Small Medical Practices?

In a medical setting, staff augmentation can be as simple as one in-house employee clicking a button to move tasks to a remote expert. This can mean less staff crowding the small clinic, while still getting the work done correctly. There are numerous areas in which staff augmentation can help private clinics, such as:

● Billing– The billing process in the healthcare industry is involved, even with specialized software. Having a staff member that solely focuses on billing can save time and cut back on billing errors.

● Data Analytics– Analyzing data you gathered about your patients and clinic is the best way of bettering your services.

● IT Services– Outsourcing your IT services can save you a lot of time and effort, making sure application development, data centralization, engineering, testing, and system analytics are all taken care of by an expert.

● Hiring Management– You can save yourself time by outsourcing the staffing process with the requirements you have for your staff and leaving the work to hiring experts.

● NextGen EMR Services– If your clinic uses NextGen EMR to automate background tasks and keep your clinic organized and staff updated, you can work with a NextGen staff augmentation consulting company to properly implement the software and train your in-house team on how to use it.

The Resource of Outsourcing

Companies that specialize in outsourced work are increasing the number and variety of services they offer. It's best to hire only the expertise you need the most in-house and outsource the remaining tasks to trusted service providers to individual contractors. Staff augmentation can be a permanent solution and a part of your business model, or a temporary solution to a project or a quick fix when things go south.