Understaffed and Overwhelmed: What Providers Can Do to Solve the Labor Shortage

Understaffing is a threat to business in all industries, but as HME and pharmacy providers know, the labor shortage has been severe in the home-based care industry for years and still isn’t letting up. Learn more about identifying when your staff needs help, Prochant’s approach to hiring, and the price of outsourcing as a potential solution.

Handling the Labor Shortage

When it comes to companies, labor is typically their most expensive commodity. Due to high labor costs, every business attempts to maximize the output of its employees. However, labor expenses never end up being less than they were originally forecasted. If you bring a new employee on board for $50,000 annually, it doesn’t take long to find out that figure is closer to $70,000. Some unexpected fees associated with hiring a new employee include IT equipment and licenses, insurance, recruiting expenses, and background/drug screening. 

Not sure if your business is understaffed? Providers can use metrics to help determine whether or not their business needs help. For example, if you see your Denial Rate reaching 15% or your 90+ A/R Percentage getting near 30%, this is a sign you may be understaffed. 

Failing key performance indicators (KPIs) are generally a way to measure if a company is understaffed or their current staff lacks the necessary experience. More often than not, it means a company is both—understaffed with an inexperienced workforce. Unfortunately, Prochant seldom comes across providers staffed exclusively in the U.S. that have their head above water. 

Having a global workforce gives Prochant a larger labor pool to pull from. As the nation’s leading technology-driven reimbursement firm for HME and pharmacy providers, our experience has taught us how to remain adequately staffed as business increases for us and our clients. 

When Prochant begins supplementing new hires with people who are experienced, our Prochant experts are able to train them significantly faster because revenue cycle management (RCM) is our sole focus. Our employees don't have to learn the ins and outs of operating a pharmacy in addition to RCM. During extensive growth periods, to ensure we stay on top of our work, Prochant adds two or three new employees when our competitors would typically only hire one.

You can't simply make peace with the fact you're understaffed and move on. That approach isn't going to do your profit margins any service. Home-base care providers need to invest in sufficient labor with the intent of employing those individuals for long periods of time. 

Don't look for a quick fix or the cheapest available option, because it won't get you anywhere in the long run. The mentality around staffing should be you are hiring now for the future.

Employing the more capable individual who requires a higher salary than a cheaper, less qualified candidate will better serve your bottom line. Even if it means you need to outsource portions of your labor. You’re better off sacrificing a small amount of revenue if it results in your business retaining a customer by satisfying their needs. In the home-based care industry, it takes a lot to get ahead but only a short amount of time to fall behind.

Outsourcing as a Solution

Many providers we work with now were in the same boat as understaffed providers who call us weekly. In-house teams aren’t always affordable, and it’s difficult to find candidates you can train in a short amount of time. Prochant’s End-to-End Revenue Cycle Management and Focused Solutions come in handy for these reasons.

Prochant operates under an at-risk business model, which is the most advantageous structure our clients could ask for. Unlike an outsourcing company who might ask for a flat or hourly fee and get paid no matter what, with Prochant, our success is your success. Our at-risk model consists of us receiving, for example, three cents out of every dollar we collect for you. Prochant's model inherently incentivizes us to be diligent towards collections and handling everything on our end you’ve allowed us to do. We ensure claims are scrubbed, clean claims are high, billing is done correctly, denials are managed, and all cash posting is accurately documented. These tasks must be completed at a high level, otherwise, we don't get paid. 

Prochant’s model makes us an ideal revenue cycle and reimbursement partner to HME and pharmacy providers. The opportunity costs associated with choosing the wrong revenue cycle management company are heftier than most firms realize. Businesses often believe they can simply get rid of their old RCM company, and the new one will come in and be able to turn the ship around immediately. However, that is not the case. Your initial money spent ends up going towards damage control to fix the issues left behind from the previous business. In our industry, it doesn’t take long to realize that cutting corners will get you nowhere fast.

Want to know more about Prochant and our reimbursement and billing solutions for providers? Start the conversation today to learn more and start solving your company’s staffing issues.


Prochant has a proven track record of helping pharmacy and HME providers meet their financial goals. Our scalable solutions, years of experience, and advanced technology provide best-in-class results to the healthcare community. Headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina, our client base includes national pharmacy and HME providers and health systems.