How OccMed Providers Can Turn Vaccine Mandates into Competitive Advantages

Medical staff compliance has always been a rapidly changing part of occupational medicine (OccMed). And with the recent vaccine mandates being added to the mix, the struggle to help deliver compliance and confidence to clients has gotten more complex. But this doesn’t have to be a bad thing. As we collectively work to help our clients meet these new challenges, we find that there are unique opportunities to turn these challenges into competitive advantages. As Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.”

In this article, we’ll take a quick look at the recent mandate changes, and then look at several ways OccMed providers can leverage the new vaccine mandates to offer better service to existing clients and drive new business.

What are the most recent changes to vaccine mandates for medical staff compliance?

In August of 2021, President Biden announced the rollout of booster shots for healthcare providers, as well as requirements for COVID-19 vaccinations for long-term care workers who serve Medicare and Medicaid facilities. The Final Rule mandating vaccines for all employers with >100 employees was released on November 4. The deadline to comply is January 4. In addition to these new mandates, many state and local governing bodies have rolled out their own mandates and requirements for compliance within the industry. Additionally, what really exacerbates the challenge is that many of these mandates and compliance requirements are changing by the day. All one needs to do is turn on the news and you’ll see new announcements, court battles, mandate bans, mandate changes, and more filling the headlines.

But as we mentioned, this doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

How the Uncertainty and Requirements Can Be a Positive

The medical community getting a better handle on how best to protect society from the COVID-19 pandemic is always going to be a positive, regardless of how challenging it makes work for OccMed providers. That being said, the positives we want to talk about today are in addition to this. With the right foresight and planning, OccMed providers can turn the new medical staff compliance requirements into competitive advantages to get a leg up on the competition.

Let’s take a look at a few ways this can be achieved. And after we share these opportunities, read on as we’ll share a simple step you can take today to achieve these goals with ease.

Be More Adaptable

Many of your clients may be struggling to adapt to the new requirements, especially if they have fairly rigid internal systems in place. This creates an opportunity for you to come in as the expert and help alleviate the stress by accomplishing their goals through adaptability. For example, offering mobile vaccination support is a great way to drive efficiency, compliance, and accuracy in a timely manner. Technology exists to do things like enabling mass immunizations, uploading vaccine information to state registries, quickly performing multi-exposure tracking, and more—all on-site through a mobile platform.

Find the pain points your clients are struggling with and leverage the available resources to solve those issues.

Be the Master of the Mandates

While that might not sound exciting, it’s a position that can bring incredible value to your clients. Step one is to set up systems to stay on top of the vaccine mandates and changes affecting your clients in real-time. Again, technology exists to assist you in truly being the expert on what’s going on and what’s required for compliance.

Step two is to leverage this knowledge to alleviate your client’s stress and impart confidence. If clients know that we’re on top of things and that they have nothing to worry about, those are happy clients.

Market Your Expertise

Once you’ve deployed more adaptable solutions and put processes in place to build client confidence, the next step is to share with the world. In a time where clients may be concerned, if they’re getting the best service or not, opportunities exist to solidify existing business and acquire new business. Start looking for ways to share your new changes with your existing client base and creative ways to build the message into your marketing efforts.

At the end of the day, our clients want to focus on taking care of patients, not on regulatory compliance. If we can deliver that experience and shine a spotlight on it, that’s an unbeatable competitive advantage.

The Next Step You Can Take Today

The great news is that you don’t have to do all of this alone. In fact, Net Health’s Occupational Medicine Solution has adapted with the COVID-19 pandemic to meet these challenges by building on its already extensive suite of resources. The software solution now provides a mobile application to support vaccine compliance on the move, helps to keep you up to date on any and all changes to regulatory compliance for your clients, and stores all client records digitally in individual files, which allows for greater customization and seamless integration.

Effectively, you get to look like a rock star to your clients and take all the credit while the software does the heavy lifting. Net Health’s OccMed software makes you confident so you can make your clients confident.  

If you’d like to learn more about how Net Health’s OccMed solutions may be able to help you, we’d invite you to schedule a free demo of the software today.

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