Hiring a therapist for your practice? Keys lie in your interview process

As a director of an outpatient rehabilitation clinic, you try hard not to have favorites among your staff. But you must admit that you consider Noelle, who you have employed for several years, to be one of your most stellar PTs. This explains the dismay you felt last fall when Noelle informed you that her husband received a job offer and the couple planned to relocate several states away.

Now it's January, and you've waited long enough-you have the money in your budget and you're ready to hire a new PT to replace Noelle. However, you have several concerns that fall under a larger a issue: How do you find a successful candidate who will become a valued part of your practice?

Industry experts say that when you interview candidates for your practice, consider a variety of factors. Although these include clinical skills and experience, also give thought to assessing items that may not be apparent at first glance, such as the candidate's ability to document services or whether his or her personality meshes with other staff. Keep the following points in mind when you consider hiring someone, experts say:

Assess the candidate's skills. One of the first questions to ask is whether the candidate has the right clinical skills for your setting, says Nancy Beckley, MS, MBA, president of Bloomingdale Consulting Group in Brandon, FL.

"A [therapist who specializes in neurological disorders] may not be a good fit if you have an orthopedic practice," Beckley says. "Your first step is to evaluate them on practice issues and on their clinical specialty."

What if there is a candidate who would be a good fit with your facility and your employees, but who would need more work on their clinical skills? Consider establishing a program in which a trusted senior therapist helps guide the newcomer along, Beckley says.

"You could set up some level of proctorship, a program in which the first month that [the new employee] is there, he or she receives some mentoring," Beckley says.

"This happens a lot, for example, with [hospitals and other organizations] that have nurses returning to the work force after some time at home. You set up a mentoring process for those nurses to [reacclimatize] and brush up on their skills."

Also consider the experience levels of the team of therapists he or she might work with, says David Perry, PT, MS, director of Gentiva Orthopedic Services in Southfield, MI, and owner of Perry Therapeutics, a consulting company in Grosse Pointe Woods, MI.

"If you are looking for someone who [is] going to be a solo practitioner, that may not be the best position to put a new graduate into," Perry says.

"That's not to say 100% that you wouldn't hire a new graduate, because you may find an exceptional candidate. But certainly, you would want to establish a more formalized mentoring program. I wouldn't even limit this to new graduates. You may hire experienced therapists for a practice setting or patient population that is newer to them. We can all use some mentoring," Perry says.

Study the candidate's documentation skills. The key to maintaining a successful rehabilitation practice is reimbursement, Beckley says. However, the key to reimbursement lies within the successful documentation of services by therapists.

"It's incredibly important to evaluate peoples' documentation skills," Beckley says. "Some very good therapists simply can't document well. There are situations where you have very good therapists who treat patients but the claims are denied because the documentation is inadequate."

You can assess a therapist's documentation skills in many different ways, but make it part of any working interview, Beckley says. Some practices may want to show a therapist candidate a videotaped presentation of a case, and ask him or her to establish a plan of care based upon the information in the video.

Alternately, you may provide the candidate with a written presentation of the case and ask him or her to document it.

Keep in mind that federal and employment laws might regulate your interview practice to a certain degree.

For example, employment laws may dictate that if you use an evaluative measure for one candidate, use it for all candidates, Beckley says. That said, an interview process that focuses upon documentation may prove to be the best option.

Include your staff in the interview process. In addition to considering a potential hire's skills, you may also want to consider whether the candidate will fit well within your facility, Perry says.

"If you've got multiple staff in your operation, you want to get their feedback as to whether this is a person who will fit in or not be abrasive," Perry says. "Just as you want to make sure you get a good clinical skill match, you also want to have a personality match."

You can have staff take an active role in the hiring process through a variety of different methods, says Perry. "You may have staff members sit in on an interview, or have the staff conduct a separate interview," Perry says.

"You may have therapy candidates come in for a staff luncheon. I do a lot of work in home care, and you may want to consider inviting a [potential hire] to ride around with a therapist for a couple of visits-especially if they haven't done home care in the past."

Remember that honesty is the best policy. You may feel frustrated if you go through a lengthy process to hire a good candidate, only to see him or her leave after a short stint at your facility.

Although this may prove difficult to prevent, encourage your employee to review both the positives and negatives aspects associated with employment at your practice during the interview process.

"You want to try and be honest and show not just the good parts of your practice, but also some of its warts," Perry says. "You want to identify some of the challenging issues that employees may face, not only the positives, but also the drawbacks."