Medical Staff Services Manager – Required Skills?
Job postings reveal a considerable amount about how a position is viewed and understood in an organization. From time to time I look at postings in the Medical / Professional Staff Services field, just to see what those writing the job ads consider essential skills for the positions.
The results can be as different as night and day. Granted, the role may vary, but not as much as these recent examples from similarly sized and similarly situated hospitals, may indicate:
Hospital A
250 beds, 550 physicians, suburb of a large metropolitan area
Position: Manager, Medical Staff Services
Requirements:
- High school diploma or equivalent.
- Associate’s degree in business or related field, or graduate from a secretarial program preferred.
- Ability to coordinate credentialing and recredentialing and maintain medical staff bylaws
- Certified Provider Credentialing Specialist or Certified Professional in Medical Services Management preferred.
- Prior experience and medical terminology preferred.
- Excellent communication and strong computer skills (i.e., Word, Excel)
Hospital B
185 beds, 500 physicians, suburb of a large metropolitan area
Position: Manager, Medical Staff Services
Requirements:
- Bachelors degree in business administration or a health care field is strongly preferred.
- Eight years of directly related experience in Medical Staff Services could substitute for degree
- Three years of Medical Staff Services experience is required, with supervisory experience preferred
- Ability to organize and direct a comprehensive and specialized credentialing program to assure continued accreditation by the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organization (JCAHO) and other regulatory organizations.
- CPMSM (Certified Professional in Medical Services Management) is required.
Hospital C
210 beds, 500 physicians, suburb of a large metropolitan area
Position: Manager, Medical Staff Services
Requirements:
- Bachelor’s or Associate Degree
- 3-5 years experience as a Medical staff services professional within a hospital setting preferred
- Knowledge of the components of the US healthcare delivery system
- Computer skills, communication skills
- Working knowledge of Medical staff credentialing and organizational structures
- Ability to develop and implement methods and procedures for improvement of the comprehensive and specialized credentialing program.
- Certification as a Certified Provider Medical Service Management (CPMSM) and /or Certified Provider Credentialing Specialist (CPCS)required.
The moral to this story, for those of you seeking qualified applicants to manage the important functions of Medical Staff Administration in your organization, is understand what the role involves and write a job ad that will attract those qualified applicants. And if you happen to have an excellent Medical Staff Services professional on your staff, respect their knowledge and abilities; it can be quite a challenge to find another one.
Diane McEntire says:
May 24th, 2010 at 5:26 pm
I just took on a new role as director of operations for a small (200) provider group practice (Provider owned) with this I have 7 clinic managers reporting to me. Most of them have grown up within the system. My gut tells me that 2 out of the 7 may keep their jobs the others are in over their heads. Is there any skills testing for clinic managers that I can utilize to measure where they are all at? I want to make sure I understand the areas for additional training are and help them get the training needed within a defined timeline.
Thoughts?