managing prn costs webinar
TRANSCRIPT
Coffee Break Webinar: Managing PRN Costs
Speaker
In his leadership role with DATIS, Erik's focus has been delivering value, productivity and efficiencies for organizations through Human Capital Management software. Erik graduated from Indiana University, Bloomington with a B.S. in Finance and a minor in German. After graduation, Erik worked for 5 years in various financial roles before joining Oracle, where he worked for 15 years. With over 20 years of experience in finance and software, Erik combines this knowledge to help organizations become leading Talent Management organizations.
Health & Human Services Workforce Challenges
• Despite continued efforts to reduce labor costs, workforce challenges are complicating this objective
• Current challenges include: • High vacancy rates • Long recruiting cycles • Increasing turnover • Aging workforce
• Difficult to balance staffing levels and costs
What is PRN staff?
PRN is an abbreviation for the Latin term, "pro re nata" which loosely translates to "as needed." PRN is a term commonly used by the Health & Human Services industry to describe short-term, contract, part-time, or fill-in work.
When Are PRN Staff Necessary? • Many organizations utilize PRN staff, or on-call staff, to maintain sufficient staffing levels and
provide the highest quality of care to their clients. Examples include organizations that • Run 24/7 facilities • Need to adhere to census requirements • Have high overtime costs • Need to frequently fill gaps caused by call-offs, no-shows, terminations • Need to augment existing staff due to increased demand (temporary or permanent)
Benefits of PRN Utilization
• Maintain Sufficient Staffing Levels • Meet Census Requirements • Avoid Premium Labor Costs
• Agency Costs • Overtime Costs • Benefit costs
PRN Management Models
• Centralized: • One manager or point-person that maintains a pool of PRNs and monitors and fills staffing
gaps across departments
• De-centralized: • Each manager is in charge of maintaining PRNs and filling the staffing gaps in their
department only
Decentralized PRN Management
• Department or Program managers are responsible for scheduling and managing individual PRNs for their specific departments
• Have detailed insight into what skills and experience are needed for specific shifts
• Know which members of their team are in or approaching overtime • May prefer to give their own employees the hours
• Little or no visibility into needs of other departments • Could be more inclined to schedule PRNs they prefer
Centralized PRN Management
• Generally handled by HR • HR acts as a service center to the rest of the business,
similar to an agency
• Schedule and manage PRN pool for the entire organization
• Maintain visibility into departments in order to fill gaps with necessary qualified PRN staff
• Can help avoid over or under utilized PRNs • Prioritize scheduling based on hours worked • Use PRNs in multiple departments if applicable
• More insight into labor costs, benefits eligibility • HR might not have in-depth knowledge of what skills the
program needs specifically
Common Issues with PRN Management
• Over-utilization • Difficult to budget • Challenges tracking PRN costs to
programs and departments • Benefits Eligibility
• Scheduler bias (“Go-tos”)
Am I Over-utilizing PRNs?
• Conduct a regular analysis of labor levels and practices to establish appropriate usage rates for premium staff
• Identify ideal vs. actual staffing costs
• PRN utilization may become more expensive than simply hiring a FT employee if the demand is steadily increasing
• Analyze gaps to ensure that you are using PRN staff as a necessary asset to provide care and not as a Band-Aid to fix known, or unknown issues
• Review overtime cost and trends • Is the department really short staffed or is their time
being inflated due to low oversight?
Technology for PRN Utilization
• Robust, real-time reporting is needed to efficiently manage PRNs in a centralized or decentralized model
• With the right tools in place, scheduling managers can monitor demand and proactively eliminate or add shifts as needed.
• Access to organization-wide labor trends can help to review historical utilization and proactively budget for future costs
• Strategically allocate the PRNs hours with visibility into “employees in or approaching overtime”
• Position Control to define qualifications necessary within each PRN position to ensure qualified staff is placed
• Variable employee monitoring to avoid benefits eligibility issues
Sample PRN Reporting
Harness the True Potential of PRNs
Having visibility into the staffing needs of the entire organization will enable you to flexibly move staff and place qualified PRNs in the departments that need them the most, resulting in better shift coverage, higher quality care, and lower labor costs overall
