Water You Waiting for? Dive into the Pool! An Interdepartmental Approach to Creating and Implementing a Certified Medical Office Assistant Hiring Pool

Our academic medical center, with more than 90 outpatient clinics, is expanding rapidly, increasing the demand for certified medical staff. To meet this challenge, we have focused on recruiting top-tier certified medical office assistants (CMOAs). Although significant challenges include the location of our regional medical centers, a competitive healthcare landscape, and the traditionally low retention rates for these positions, we know we have the program that can meet these challenges head-on.
To tackle these challenges, we established a centralized recruitment approach aimed at optimizing the hiring and retention of CMOAs. This initiative is a collaborative effort between the ambulatory care hiring pool leadership and talent acquisition partners to establish recruitment objectives that align with the strategic goals of the organization. The process begins with collecting staffing requests from each clinic along with other essential information, including current vacancies, job responsibilities and duties, and financial details for the department. These requests are then prioritized based on submission date, length of vacancy, and clinic staffing ratios before moving on to the recruitment stage.
Our partners in recruitment screen and sort candidates based on suitability for the program. After interviews and hiring, candidates begin their hiring pool journey. Over roughly two weeks that follow, candidates rotate through 3-4 clinics chosen by hiring pool leadership based on candidate preference, open clinic requisitions, and current clinic staffing levels. During this rotation, hiring pool CMOAs are trained by highly skilled preceptors from the ambulatory care float pool, allowing clinic staff and leadership to conduct a “working interview” while the candidate obtains the training and orientation needed for their role as a clinic CMOA. This approach provides clinic leadership with an opportunity to observe a candidate's skills and interactions with patients and the care team in a real-life working environment and ultimately to identify which candidate would be an optimal fit for their clinic’s unique requirements. This strategy facilitates the establishment of a mutually suitable fit for both the candidate and the clinic. At the end of the rotation, candidates are presented with employment offers, allowing them to select their preferred position. Once an offer is accepted, the candidate is transferred out of the hiring pool and into their new clinical role.
Since launching this program in January 2023, 95 candidates have been successfully hired into the CMOA hiring pool. Of those 95, 88 have gone on to fill open CMOA positions in our clinics with a retention rate of approximately 72%. In FY24, 45 open CMOA positions were filled, with a retention rate of 82%. Since inception, our organizational retention rate increased to 91.2% in FY23, with FY24 data still pending. We attribute this success to the exceptional experience provided to candidates, exposing them to various clinical environments and allowing them to connect with potential team members while choosing their preferred position.
Next steps include analyzing our data, identifying gaps in our processes, and further enhancing recruitment and retention in our health system. With the success we’ve seen, we're confident that our program will continue to meet our needs.