Most health systems have at least 100 job openings: survey

Healthcare leaders have said they are facing severe staffing crunches, and a new survey adds more weight to those assessments.

More than half of all hospitals and health systems (57%) reported that they have more than 100 job openings, according to a poll of healthcare finance leaders. The survey, which was released Wednesday morning, was commissioned by AKASA, a developer of artificial intelligence for healthcare.

In addition, one in four healthcare finance leaders also said they need to hire more than 20 workers to fully staff their revenue cycle departments, the poll found.

Amy Raymond, VP of revenue cycle operations at AKASA, said healthcare systems may need to have an open mind when it comes to filling some of those open positions.

"If you don’t have the people, you can’t do the work,” Raymond said in a statement accompanying the poll.

“For hospitals, lack of staff within the revenue cycle means you aren’t getting paid," she said. "To attract talent, healthcare financial leaders should shift their mindsets: this means relaxing job requirements like years of experience or offer intensive training to new hires with limited background in healthcare finance."

Raymond also encouraged healthcare leaders to focus on retaining valued workers, by investing in competitive pay and giving them chances for better positions.

She also pointed to automation solutions to help take some of the burden off workers.

• Related story: Healthcare systems do more electronically, but there's room to improve

The survey included responses from 411 chief financial officers and revenue cycle leaders at hospitals and health systems across the country. The poll was done through the Healthcare Financial Management Association’s Pulse Survey program between Dec. 1-21, 2021.

The survey was designed to assess the adoption of automation in billing operations.