Premier Puts Quality at the Heart of Healthcare Staffing with RefAssured
In 60 days of using RefAssured:
Talent Lead Opt-Ins
100
Recruiter Hours Saved
1,000
Faster Turnaround Time
67%
Introduction
“Quality” is a common word with an uncommon power.
At Premier Medical Staffing Services, quality is core to their vision. It’s the very foundation of their business, alongside compassion – driving every placement and every client and clinician relationship.
As a sought-after provider of travel nursing and allied health staffing services proudly headquartered in Milwaukee but serving the entire U.S., Premier has turned quality of talent, deep healthcare expertise, and trustworthy vetting of healthcare professionals into a competitive advantage.
For Janelle Thompson, Premier’s director of marketing operations, maintaining the company’s rigorous standards for placement and upholding their reputation for excellence starts with strong processes, sound technology – and most importantly – a relentless commitment to quality.
“I know agencies that cut corners when it comes to placing talent,” said Thompson, “where they’ll put anyone who checks a box in a role. I’ve been with Premier for ten years now and in our hardest times and in our best times we always have the same focus – quality. We put only the very best clinicians on assignment because these clinicians are taking care of other human beings and it’s our company who put them in that position. That is a tremendous responsibility, and we take it seriously.”
The Problem
Recognizing the power of combining speed and quality to generate positive outcomes for customers and clinicians, Premier had already turned to an automated solution for their mandatory Joint Commission-compliant reference checking process.
But unfortunately, all technology is not created equal.
“We were using an automated solution for our clinician reference checks that was a subsidiary of an applicant tracking system designed for corporate HR teams,” said Thompson. “I’m not saying it was bad, but we were running into a lot of hurdles because the solution wasn’t built for healthcare or staffing. Staffing was an add-on industry for them, and boy did we feel like an add-on. We had to request customization frequently, and trying to get ahold of anyone at that company to talk to was like pulling teeth.”
Worse than the lack of responsiveness was the lack of understanding of how healthcare staffing actually works.
“This other reference checking provider didn’t understand staffing agency workflows, wasn’t able to work with our symplr CTM applicant tracking system, and treated us like a number. That’s not the way we treat our clinicians and it’s not the way we treat our customers, so it just felt jarring. You don’t realize how damaging it is to work with solutions that aren’t built for your business when that’s all you know.”
Frustrated with their reference checking automation solution and looking for a better way to ensure hire quality, Premier sought the advice of their longtime ATS provider, symplr, who recommended they switch to RefAssured.
Janelle Thompson
Director of Marketing Operations
Premier Medical Staffing Services
“Using a platform like RefAssured is how we prove that we are 100% committed to quality. It’s how we show our customers that we vet and assess talent better than our competitors do, and that we care enough to provide the most comfortable process for our clinicians. RefAssured is our antidote to ordinary."
The Solution
Given the strength of Premier’s relationship with symplr, and the popularity of symplr CTM as a healthcare staffing-focused ATS, the endorsement of RefAssured was powerful.
“The team at symplr spoke very highly of RefAssured and the positive impact it had generated for other symplr CTM customers,” said Thompson. “And that matters to us, because symplr knows healthcare staffing very well. They noted that not only did RefAssured integrate natively with symplr CTM, but that the whole RefAssured team had a staffing background, which is unique and super cool.”
Thompson then decided to meet the team for herself, visiting the RefAssured booth at an industry conference. “I expected them to do what every vendor does, which is just say ‘let me show you RefAssured.’ What they said instead was, ‘let me show you how RefAssured works within your ATS and unlocks value for you and your team.’ I was impressed.”
Upon exploring the RefAssured platform, the team at Premier was instantly won over. Not only was the platform more robust with better feature functionality, but the deep integration with symplr CTM coupled with the expertise and warmth of the RefAssured team made the decision straightforward and easy. And the rating scale and intelligence from RefAssured’s reference questionnaires was unlike anything the agency had seen before.
Thompson explained: “RefAssured goes far beyond just determining if someone meets the baseline requirements for a role, helping us get a 360-degree view of their individual strengths, areas for development, and degrees of quality that make them particularly well-suited for a specific placement. Anyone can have an off day and flub a phone screen, but references don’t lie. And the way RefAssured’s questions and ratings are designed provides a level of insight that not only helps us find the ideal clinician for every role, but also the ideal role for every clinician.”
Another feature of special interest to the Premier team, specifically around revenue growth, was RefAssured’s built-in warm lead generation functionality that attracts interested talent and sales prospects, while elevating Premier’s brand through dedicated real estate and verbiage integrated into the RefAssured reference questionnaire.
“Staffing – especially healthcare staffing – can be a grudge purchase,” said Thompson. “It’s something that hospital systems and care centers sometimes feel like they have to do versus want to do. And sometimes just a means to an end for clinicians. But at Premier, we’re here to change that. We work tirelessly to build long-lasting, thoughtful, trusting relationships with our customers and clinicians. Using a platform like RefAssured is how we prove that we are 100% committed to quality. It’s how we show our customers that we vet and assess talent better than our competitors do, and that we care enough to provide the most comfortable process for our clinicians.”
“RefAssured is our antidote to ordinary,” she added.
The Result
Going live on RefAssured was a turnkey process that took the entire team only a few days. And because the platform is designed to be intuitive and reference information writes back automatically into symplr CTM candidate and job records, there wasn’t really a learning curve.
“RefAssured is user-friendly, not just for recruiters, but also for our clinicians,” said Thompson. “Our recruiters are so bought into it, they can’t imagine not having it now. Our talent is more engaged and loyal to us because the reference intake process is faster and easier. And there are so many benefits that we’ve discovered since making the switch. The RefAssured rating scale is unbiased and so informative, and the leads we bring in are great sources of revenue for us. And the fraud and IP tracking that RefAssured provides means we can really trust in the process. Overall, it’s just so much more caring and well-designed than what we were using before, and such a better use of our money. With RefAssured, we actually generate meaningful ROI instead of generating a lot of indifference.”
In the first two months of using RefAssured, Premier generated more than 100 qualified clinical talent leads who opted in, saved 1000 recruiter hours, and reduced their reference turnaround time from three days to less than 24 hours.
Thompson has also been able to take two of her team members off of data entry duty and reallocate their time to more value-adding and enjoyable strategic work. “Before RefAssured, we had to manually enter leads into symplr CTM,” said Thompson. “So every day we had a round robin in which I and two teammates were assigned a new lead that we’d need to process, and we’d have to manually match it to job orders and reference processes and cut and paste into CTM. With RefAssured, all of that is done automatically and seamlessly, which has saved my team a ton of time and a ton of stress.”
Additionally, the Premier team has been able to continually unlock greater value from the platform thanks to RefAssured’s responsive, collaborative approach to customer service.
“RefAssured has better customer service than probably any other vendor I’ve worked with,” said Thompson. “Not just among reference checking vendors, mind you – I mean vendors, period. They’re fast and professional and transparent and friendly. They give me the information I need and the information I didn’t realize I needed, like how to prepare for a presentation to a client or how to help recruiters better engage talent.”
Final Thoughts
The future is bright for Premier Medical Staffing Services, with a strong and caring team focused on quality and service with a compassionate core.
When asked what advice Janelle would provide to other healthcare staffing agencies either using lightweight automated reference checking solutions, doing the process manually, or those who object to the idea of revisiting how they manage reference checks, she was circumspect.
“Years ago, we used to say, ‘oh this is good enough.’ We thought that our scrappiness and hard work as a team could overpower a bad process or mediocre technology. And while that’s technically true, eventually we realized that wait – we deserve better. Our clinicians deserve better. Our customers deserve better. So why are we settling for the middle of the pack? Are we the middle of the pack? No. Are we saving money by wasting time, getting things half done, and cleaning up messes constantly? No.”
And in the case of RefAssured, the platform has become an extension of the team, helping Premier stay faithful to its core values and promote empathy and respect by mitigating bias and honoring human authenticity.
“Automation exists to support and empower humans to be creative and do interesting things,” said Thompson, “and RefAssured embodies that. The platform fits with our core values of being personable and respectful, and turns something that was painful, burdensome, and unpredictable into something that is engaging and scalable and insightful. Our clinicians work all hours and when they need to talk to someone after hours, we’re here. With technology like RefAssured, we can give our undivided attention to the clinician instead of being knee deep in paperwork. It’s very uplifting to see that balance of thoughtful technology and awesome people create a sense of community.”
Thompson continued, noting that the impact of high-quality extensible platform technology transcends just the task or process for which it was designed.
“Reference checking is just the tip of the iceberg,” she said. “RefAssured has improved how we operate and lowered our operating costs. It has helped our marketing team, our compliance team, our client management team. It has helped our recruiting team lessen their admin work and spend more time building strong relationships – because it’s those strong relationships that get us the bill rates we want at the end of the day. Clinicians and clients notice the quality improvements and the speed at which we work, and they want to work with us. It helps us level up our brand and stand out. Having a scalable way to ensure better quality hires affects every single department.”
RefAssured is now a major part of Premier’s internal processes and is one of the company’s standard operating procedures. Additionally, Premier’s recruiting team now has a section of their weekly team call dedicated to RefAssured and the status of RefAssured-generated leads.
As for what the future holds, Thompson is optimistic about how the team at Premier will grow their use of RefAssured to accomplish even more.
“The world of healthcare staffing is getting more competitive,” said Thompson. “The market is so saturated with agencies and it’s harder and harder to find qualified talent, keep them interested, and stand out in a crowd. But with RefAssured’s quality insight and the growth opportunities it creates for us, all in the hands of our extremely capable and dedicated team, we just feel really good about our ability to get ahead and stay ahead.”
About Premier Medical Staffing Services
At Premier Medical Staffing Services, we bridge the gap between exceptional healthcare professionals and the institutions that require their expertise. With a legacy rooted in Milwaukee, our reach extends nationwide, providing tailored staffing solutions that embody quality and compassion. We’re not just filling positions; we’re fostering partnerships that bolster patient care and enhance the medical profession. Our journey is driven by a collective spirit—a dedicated team working in unison to navigate the dynamic landscape of healthcare staffing. It’s the stories of lives touched and communities served that fuel our passion and commitment to healthcare excellence.
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