FAQs
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
How does staff leasing work?
Staff leasing provides you with a dedicated Healthscope Team exclusively focused on your company. This ensures that your employees are well-versed in your unique policies and can establish strong patient and referral relationships, just like your US-based staff. Unlike outsourcing, you maintain direct control over your team, enabling them to meet your specific job-related expectations and metrics. You handle training, task distribution, and productivity and quality management, while we take care of HR-related tasks and initial basic trainings in collaboration with your management.
What is the major difference between typical outsourcing and what you offer?
Staff leasing and outsourcing services can be delivered onshore or offshore, although for many tasks it is increasingly more common for vendors to provide offshored services in order to deliver cost savings from labor arbitrage to the onshore client.
Staff leasing is no different than hiring a temp in the U.S. except our offer is based on a contractual term that guarantees you stability (rolling contracts with a six or 12-month termination clause).
The major difference in our offer against typical outsourcing is:
- Usually tasks are outsourced and performed in “silos.” Our approach is creating cross-functional teams that enhance productivity and adaptability to unforeseen operational challenges. Additionally, this enables you to add new roles in areas where outsourcing vendors lack expertise, eliminating the need to work with multiple vendors.
- Our approach lets you retain full control of your team, similar to employing them directly. This includes task-related training and managing tasking, productivity, and quality. In outsourcing, you have limited say in day-to-day operations and work only with the vendor’s management team on agreed metrics.
- Your dedicated team is focused solely on you, ensuring continuous growth in their understanding of your business. Unlike other outsourcing providers, team members aren’t reassigned to new clients, which leads to enhanced productivity and satisfaction, and benefits all stakeholders in the long run: you, your field staff, referral sources, and patients.
What does offshore staff leasing cost?
This would depend on what roles you are looking to fill in. You can save anywhere from 50% to 80% on staffing cost but note that higher savings come from more complex or senior roles. For instance, higher savings is possible for a number of RNs than a back-office admin staff.
Staffing costs are one of the largest line items on the balance sheet and the impact on the bottom line can be substantial for businesses.
Do leased staff also work with other clients?
No, the staff hired for you are considered your staff and will remain on your account.
What hours do offshore staff work?
Your team will work all US business days during hours you specify (your time zone). There are 1.4 million BPO workers in the Philippines and culture is built around 24-hour life. 75% of BPO workers work for US-based businesses, thus working nights for US business hours is very common. Office hubs, restaurants, stores, and public transport are available at all hours of the day.
Why do you work with staff from the Philippines?
The Philippines has a huge pool of highly educated professionals with exemplary English speaking and writing skills. A former American colony, it is the third largest English-speaking country in the world. The offshoring workforce serving foreign markets operates across multiple time zones. Approximately 75% of the 1.2 million staff employed by outsourcing providers work during night hours to cater to the needs of US and Canadian markets. Staff can be assigned to work specific hours you require to accommodate your business needs.
How well can my team speak English?
In the Philippines, English is taught as a second language from primary school onwards. Our staff speak college-level English with a slight Filipino accent.
How can we be assured that our staff are good people?
Partnering with a trusted and experienced offshore company is one way to be sure. Healthscope has developed a proven recruiting process in our 13 years in the industry. Every shortlisted candidate is required to submit pre-hire documentation including:
- Educational qualifications, university and third-party professional graduation certificates and results;
- An NBI criminal background clearance, the Philippines equivalent of an FBI background check;
- Personal identity documents, national ID card/driver’s license;
- A fitness-to-work certificate, a signed clearance from a doctor that confirms the employee’s capability to perform their job functions; and
- References and contact information from past employers.
All submitted documents are checked to ensure they are valid and have not been tampered with.
Do offshore staff have professional qualifications?
Registered Nurses (RN), at the minimum, have a bachelor’s degree in nursing and passed the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC) Philippine Nurses Licensure Examination (Nursing Board Exam).
Back office staff have at least one Bachelor degree; some even have a master’s degree.
During the onboarding process, you will fill out a role sheet describing who and what you are looking for in terms of experience, qualifications, and certifications, and we recruit to that.
Do the professional qualifications transfer to the USA?
It’s not needed in most offshore roles. However, a nurse taking/making patient phone calls, for instance to determine if a patient is suffering from an exacerbation that would require re-hospitalization, would need professional qualifications. He or she would also need to be experienced with enough knowledge to be able to triage and determine if there is a problem, and communicate that to the nurse on the ground in the USA who would go visit the patient to make the final determination.
If you have a question about specific professional qualifications please reach out.
Do staff work in the office or at home?
We require healthcare staff to work in the office so we can maintain HIPAA & HITECH compliance.
What type of technology do you use?
All in-office staff are equipped with Windows-based systems with dual monitors and noise canceling headphones. Our offices have high capacity dedicated internet lines into the USA capable of voice and data with a backup line from a second provider, if required. All servers and desktop computers have a UPS and the offices have a backup electricity generator in case the mains go down.
How do you protect client security?
We use dedicated VPNs to access data on client systems. We do not keep client data on our servers. Staff use client-supplied VoIP and email, or other communications platforms such as Slack. Our IT department operates to the ISO 27000:2018 standard and as healthcare is one of our specialties, all offices operate strictly to USA HIPAA and HITECH compliance standards. In 13 years in business we have never had a security incident.
How long does it take to get set up?
It takes four to eight weeks to hire your team, depending on the roles, level of seniority, and how many staff are needed. We keep a pool of back office candidates and can activate back office roles in as little as two weeks. But for other positions it can take two to four weeks to identify candidates and make a job offer, then another four weeks until they can join the team upon completion of requirements.
Do I have to travel to the Philippines?
No. However, we highly recommend traveling to meet your team for the kickoff and initial training. When hiring 10 – 20 staff, a two-week live training supplemented with a visit from onshore team members proves to be highly successful. This allows for a personal connection with each team member, fostering loyalty and building a strong team dynamic.
How did Healthscope start?
Our founder, Rob Brough, co-owned and operated a Durable Medical Equipment business out of Southern California. Faced with pressure to remain profitable, he boarded a plane to the Philippines to look into offshore staffing. He wasn’t satisfied with any of the available providers and decided to do it himself, making a deal on an office property and hiring his own staff directly. This didn’t come without challenges, but over ten years later offshoring proved to save the business during an economic downturn when others closed their doors. In 2019, he sold the DME to focus full-time on offshore staffing in the Philippines, growing Healthscope and opening a new division, Agility Staffing Services, employing hundreds of new staff to take on new clients outside the healthcare space.