Demystify behavioral health staffing with this one simple solution 

The increased need for behavioral healthcare is a growing stat that’s here to stay. 

Rates of mental health conditions and substance abuse problems are on the rise, and with that, already overburdened behavioral health facilities are having to work tirelessly to keep up with baseline demand, let alone account for rapidly expanding future needs. 

According to a survey by the National Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, mental health facilities were utilized at an average rate of 144% (total number of clients over the total number of designated beds available). 

These numbers are only increasing over time, leaving behavioral health facilities facing a potential crisis. 

The intricate nature of behavioral health staffing

Behavioral health facilities occupy a space unlike any other. 

While hospitals provide emergency care, clinics provide outpatient services, and surgery centers usually provide a mix of inpatient and outpatient services. Behavioral health facilities typically provide all three, including: 

• Outpatient: Prescribing medications, therapy, IOP programs, and assisting patients with low care needs.
• Inpatient: Working with substance abuse patients, medication management, and therapy for more severe clients and higher support needs.
• Crisis stabilization: Highest level of care requiring constant patient supervision for severe mental health conditions and substance abuse issues. 

Working with all three levels of care creates staffing challenges that build on each other. 

Behavioral health facilities face stricter mandated staffing ratios, but in the midst of an already detrimental healthcare worker shortage, behavioral health administrators are stretching their full-time staff thin, relying on expensive agencies, or even turning away patients who desperately need care. 

Staffing optimization for behavioral health

Behavioral healthcare workers are also currently facing the highest levels of burnout. 

In a survey of behavioral health professionals, 93% of participants indicated they had experienced burnout, with 62% indicating they had experienced severe burnout. 

Working with patients who have mental health conditions and substance abuse issues requires extra compassion and care that can be draining. 

When these same health professionals are working overtime, unable to utilize PTO, or take adequate breaks, the repercussions on their own mental well-being and job satisfaction are impossible to ignore.

The strategy that most facilities have implemented is to just hire more staff when turnover strikes; however, this is costly and ineffective. Hiring new staff can take months, and when facilities are facing urgent needs, many behavioral health facilities will have to reckon with possible permanent closures. 

The solution isn’t just hiring more staff. Successful behavioral health staffing optimizes the current workforce and leans into flexible support for all other needs. 

Burnout reduction strategies 

Behavioral health facilities often require low staff-to-patient ratios, which can put a dramatic strain on resources. So the first step is ensuring that you, as an administrator, are supporting your staff so they can best support your patients. 

These steps don’t have to be complicated. They can include:

• Providing staff on these floors with ample breaks
• Rotating staff members for high-volume shifts so nobody is overutilized 
• Checking in with staff to make sure they have time off scheduled 
• Utilizing staff’s preferred hours and days of the week for scheduling 
• Not singling out specific health professionals to work overtime or pick up more shifts

Solutions like Medely Core offer a more streamlined scheduling experience that allows facilities to see real-timesolutions to these questions. 

Core provides a complete overview of your internal staff, including their PTO, conflicts, overtime, and any unfilled shifts or gaps, all in a single view. 

Administrators can use Core to automate scheduling using Medely’s powerful algorithms. Easily add preferences, constraints, required staffing ratios, and more to our scheduler, which then creates the most cost-effective, efficient schedule. You can then approve it and automatically send it out to your staff. 

This helps reduce human error, such as overlapping shifts and overutilization of specific healthcare workers, while also giving administrators valuable insights into staffing trends and which staff are at most risk for burnout.

Regain autonomy with per diem workers 

Integrating a flexible workforce is another key to efficient behavioral health staffing.

Both overtime and agencies outsource total control over scheduling, creating uncertainty, which is why more facilities are shifting to a flex workforce model. 

Core staff still work their scheduled hours, but instead of overtime, facilities slot in per diem workers in the inevitable gaps that occur with fluctuating demand, callouts, and staff time off. 

Medely’s robust Core solution is the all-in-one tool for behavioral health administrators to better manage their internal and per diem staff in one spot. Core also notifies you of any gaps, giving you the option to waterfall your open shifts through a designated posting path. 

If internal staff can’t pick it up, you can automatically send the shift information to all relevant, pre-vetted nurses and health professionals on the Medely platform. When a nurse or health professional accepts the shift, they’re added directly to your schedule. 

Medely’s marketplace offers a benefit over agency staff because it helps you maintain autonomy over who is working on your floor. Medely’s Favorites Feature allows you to create a running list of nurses and health professionals who have performed well at your facility, allowing you to easily call them back next time a need arises. 

This allows for the flexibility of an external staffing agency with the trust of an internal float pool. Patient care is more evenly distributed across healthcare workers, ensuring all workers on the floor are rested and ready to go. 

We know that demand is fluctuating, so when demand is low, simply utilize your internal resources and know that when demand picks back up, Medely is here, ready to support your facility again.

Use Medely for behavioral health staffing needs 

Medely supports behavioral health facilities nationwide, like The Nestled Recovery Center. Thanks to Medely, they were able to build a reliable favorites pool of 20 healthcare workers and achieved a 97% shift fill rate. Learn how Dawn supports her staff with Medely here.