Similarly, when it comes to physician hires, ask about gaps in education, Madden said. “You want to see that this person has either written something, presented something or is actively doing their CME, and they should put that on a resume. You want to get a sense that this person is actively engaged in their specialty and keeping their skills up to date. If that’s missing, I would be concerned about that.”
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September 2012Make Them Prove It
We want people who have done some research on the practice, who ask what they will be doing and who can relate their past experiences and show an interest and passion for wanting to interact with patients.—Michael Grubb, executive director, Charleston Ear, Nose and Throat Associates
At ENT and Allergy Associates in Tarrytown, N.Y., interviewers don’t just take a candidate’s—or their references’—word for it, they make them prove what’s on their resume. “We like to try to poke holes,” said Nicole Monti-Spadaccini, the practice’s chief operating officer, noting that people tend to exaggerate on their resume. “When people come in and they don’t interview as well as they present themselves on paper, that’s a red flag, because here you are saying all of these beautiful things about yourself, but you’re not portraying that.”
Going a step further, ENT and Allergy Associates prefers to role play with front office staff during the interview process to test their customer service skills, rather than simply interviewing candidates based on their resumes. They also quiz prospective hires for their marketing and billing departments right on the spot. “If I say, ‘What is an EOB?” which is an explanation of benefits, and they don’t know what that is, then we’re in trouble,” said Monti-Spadaccini.
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Though none of the experts interviewed relies heavily on social media checks during the hiring process, they do agree that it’s worth asking whether the interviewee has Facebook and Twitter pages and whether the sites are used personally or professionally. When it comes to physicians, it’s even more crucial to know whether or not they engage with patients on such sites, to be aware of any potential liabilities from the get go.
More telling than social media use, though, is a physician’s patient ratings on websites such as healthgrades.com, Madden said. Though you shouldn’t eliminate a candidate solely on the basis of poor patient grades, hiring managers should absolutely inquire about any negative feedback. If bad ratings are minimal or the result of a smear campaign by a competitor, the prospective hire may still be a good candidate. But if it’s clear poor grades are a reflection of poor physician practice, the candidate may do more harm than good to the practice’s reputation.