According to recent studies, nearly 60% of healthcare finance leaders cite talent shortages as their top concern for maintaining revenue integrity. With the growing complexity of payer relationships, patient financial responsibilities, and regulatory demands, assembling a high-performing revenue cycle management (RCM) team is no longer a back-office consideration—it’s a necessary front-line business decision.

Let’s explore five high-impact strategies for recruiting a resilient, agile RCM team that can thrive in today’s complex healthcare environment.

1. Understand What Makes a Great RCM Team

According to PracticeSuite, “The revenue cycle refers to all tasks before, during, and after a patient’s visit that affects a practice’s ability to get paid. Thus, RCM is the optimization of this cycle, which begins when a patient calls for a medical appointment and ends when the final bill is paid.”

RCM is no longer limited to transactional billing and collections. As the patient financial experience becomes a core part of care delivery, top-performing RCM teams combine technical precision with empathy and service.

Here are some defining traits of successful RCM professionals:

• Multidisciplinary expertise: RCM professionals today are expected to understand the full patient journey, including scheduling, eligibility, and collections. They should also be familiar with the insurance billing process, including prior authorization, coding, and claims. Candidates with experience across multiple revenue cycle stages bring a more holistic perspective.
• Patient-centered communication skills: From pre-registration to the final bill, communication must be clear, compassionate, and proactive. Front-end staff increasingly need soft skills like empathy and active listening to discuss cost estimates and payment options in detail and follow up with clients about payments.

• Tech fluent: Electronic Health Records (EHR), billing automation tools, and analytics platforms are now embedded in every part of the revenue cycle. Candidates who are comfortable with EHR software—and can interpret data to improve performance—are highly valuable.
• Adaptable: Between software updates, payer policy shifts, and new interoperability rules, the healthcare landscape is always in flux. Look for individuals who embrace continuous learning and are comfortable navigating ambiguity.

Leverage the interview process to gauge candidate skills that you can’t learn from their resume, like their workplace mindset and approach to problems.

2. Hire for Healthcare-Specific Challenges

The nuances of healthcare billing—from coding accuracy to patient affordability—require a team that deeply understands sector-specific challenges.

Many costly RCM issues originate early in the cycle, such as during patient scheduling, eligibility checks, or prior authorization. If handled incorrectly, errors at this stage can ripple through claims and collections, creating delays, denials, and dissatisfied patients.

Unfortunately, many organizations fall into predictable hiring traps by prioritizing general customer service experience over specific knowledge of insurance workflows. Similarly, some staff frontline patient financial services with individuals lacking training in compliance and compassionate communication—an oversight that undermines both fiscal and patient experience goals.

To avoid these issues, use top talent acquisition strategies, such as:

• Writing targeted job descriptions that highlight relevant software experience, knowledge of regulatory guidelines, and soft skills such as empathy and communication.
• Using skills-based assessments in the interview process, such as roleplaying patient interactions.
• Involving cross-functional stakeholders from finance, compliance, and IT to help screen candidates.
• Benchmarking compensation and role structures against industry norms to stay competitive and attract the best talent.

Ultimately, hiring for healthcare-specific roles isn’t just about plugging a staffing hole—it’s about investing in future-proof operations. By building a team equipped with the right experience and instincts, you create a foundation for cleaner claims, faster reimbursements, and fewer compliance missteps. In a system where trust and precision matter equally, the people you hire become a critical part of delivering on bothe.

3. Align Staffing With Financial Strategy

Your RCM staffing model should complement your organization’s financial priorities. Begin with a comprehensive RCM capability assessment to pinpoint gaps in your tactics. This may include:

• Reviewing your most common claims denial categories—such as missing prior authorizations, inaccurate coding, or eligibility discrepancies—and identifying their root causes.
• Analyzing productivity by role and department.
• Benchmarking your organization’s key metrics against industry standards (e.g., net collection rate, days in Accounts Receivable (A/R), and denial rate).

Once you’ve established key needs, align staffing plans with strategic goals. For example, if reducing days in A/R is a priority, hiring experienced collectors and payer relations specialists can yield fast results. If improving patient satisfaction is the aim, consider hiring highly organized front-office staff who also have strong communication skills.

4. Support Recruitment With the Right Tools

Supporting your hiring team with the right systems can significantly accelerate and improve outcomes. In particular, technology can streamline the entire talent acquisition funnel. Jobvite suggests using an applicant tracking system (ATS) to “house data that’s used across the team, such as interview questions and follow-up timelines” to ensure your recruitment process stays efficient. Besides an ATS, here are other tools you can use to improve  hiring:

• Video interviewing tools
• AI-based sourcing platforms
• Automated reference check services
• Interview scheduling tools
• Bias-blocking tools to mitigate hiring bias

Ideally, find a solution that encompasses all of these features and integrates with your existing tech stack. Assess both immediate and long-run impacts so you select a tech solution that scales with your organization as you grow and provides a better return on your investment (ROI).

5. Onboard and Retain Thoughtfully

Acquiring great RCM talent is only half the battle—retaining them is equally critical. Turnover in RCM roles can be costly, leading to productivity losses, billing delays, and compliance risks.

Effective onboarding and ongoing engagement can significantly improve retention. Successful onboarding programs go beyond HR checklists to include job shadowing, hands-on training, peer mentorship, and early exposure to performance expectations.

For instance, you can:

• Map career pathways to show employees how they can advance within the department.
• Recognize contributions publicly to demonstrate your appreciation for your employees’ hard work.
• Solicit feedback regularly using surveys or one-on-one check-ins to identify workflow pain points and opportunities for improvement.

Investing in your RCM team’s development pays dividends in loyalty, performance, and patient satisfaction. Just ensure your employee offerings are as helpful and valuable as possible to boost satisfaction and ROI. Look to industry trends and feedback from staff members to continuously improve your onboarding materials and processes.

Organizations that treat RCM hiring as an adaptive, strategic process will be best positioned to navigate whatever challenges the healthcare landscape brings next. That’s why building a high-performing RCM team should be an ongoing process that evolves with your organization’s goals, technology landscape, and patient expectations. After implementing these strategies, evaluate their effectiveness based on the metrics you established with your teams.