Optimizing Recruiting Operations Within the Access Center
By Elizabeth W. Woodcock, DrPH, MBA, FACMPE, CPC
Recruiting is often treated as an administrative function within access centers. At Keck Medicine of USC, finding and integrating new team members became the catalyst for a transformation. By bringing recruiting directly into the access center and aligning it with quality assurance and training, leaders reshaped workforce stability, improved service levels, and significantly reduced employee turnover.
Participants in the Patient Access Collaborative’s 9th Annual Virtual Access Center Conference got to hear first-hand from the team at Keck who leads these efforts: Debbi Bueno Martinez, Quality Assurance and Training Specialist, Michael Lam, Quality Assurance and Training Specialist, Cody Lee, Scheduling Supervisor, Meagan Oshiro, Quality Assurance and Training Specialist.
Starting with Culture and People
The transformation began in 2023, when Access Center leadership recognized that operational change required a new approach to hiring.
“Thinking back to 2023, while I was part of the training team and quality assurance team, we recognized a pivotal moment for our Access Center,” said Cody Lee, Scheduling Supervisor. “We were in the midst of a significant culture change, and we knew to truly transform our environment, we had to start at the very beginning…with our people.”
Lee and his colleagues proposed a fundamental shift: placing recruiting within the Quality Assurance and Training team rather than relying exclusively on traditional hiring channels through Human Resources. This ensured that hiring decisions reflected the operational realities, performance expectations, and culture of the Access Center.
“Our mission was clear,” Lee explained. “We didn’t want to just find candidates with the right skills. We also wanted them to have the right culture and values.”
This change created continuity across the employee lifecycle, allowing the same team to influence hiring, onboarding, training, and quality monitoring.
Understanding the Scope and Complexity
The scale of the Access Center made effective recruiting especially critical.
“Within the Access Center, we offer many departments, from otolaryngology to internal medicine, orthopedics, dermatology, and women’s health,” said Michael Lam, Quality Assurance and Training Specialist. “Our workforce is up to 150-plus FTEs… and about 98 percent of our workforce is remote.”
Agents support a wide range of services, including scheduling, referral management, registration, and general inquiries. This complexity requires staff who can quickly learn systems, follow protocols, and deliver a consistent patient experience.
Recruiting inefficiencies previously created downstream operational challenges.
Addressing Recruiting Challenges Head-On
Prior to restructuring, recruiting processes lacked consistency and alignment. Hiring decisions were often rushed, screening processes were limited, and interview participation was fragmented.
“We did have some past recruiting challenges,” said Meagan Oshiro, Quality Assurance and Training Specialist. “Minimal time allotment for recruitment led to rushed hiring decisions, which created performance gaps once new hires were onboarded.”
These challenges also extended to candidate evaluation.
“We prioritized experience at times rather than overall fit for the team, which could negatively impact morale and increase turnover,” Oshiro noted.
Contract staffing provided short-term coverage but created longer-term instability and inefficiencies. These issues underscored the need for a more structured, quality-driven recruiting approach.
Building a Structured, Quality-Driven Recruiting Process
The redesigned recruiting model introduced structure, consistency, and accountability at every stage. Clear timelines were established for application review, screening, interviewing, and onboarding.
“We begin the process with setting clear timelines,” Oshiro explained. “Setting these timelines up front helps us stay aligned and avoid delays, especially when we have bigger recruiting projects.”
Phone screenings helped clarify expectations and identify strong candidates early. Behavioral interviews evaluated adaptability, communication skills, and cultural fit - not just prior experience.
Quality Assurance specialists partnered with supervisors during interviews, ensuring alignment between hiring decisions and operational needs.
This continuity extended into onboarding, helping ensure new hires were prepared for success from day one.
Accelerating Training and Improving Readiness
Improved recruiting led directly to faster training timelines and stronger workforce readiness.
“Optimizing our recruitment process has allowed us to provide a positive impact to our Access Center, with one of those impacts being improving our training timeline,” said Debbi Bueno Martinez, Quality Assurance and Training Specialist. “What used to be from eight to ten-week training, we now see our agents start taking calls probably at the sixth week—so training is now between four to six weeks.”
Better-qualified candidates required less time to learn foundational skills, allowing training to focus on role-specific workflows, scheduling protocols, and specialty requirements. This accelerated readiness improved operational efficiency and reduced strain on experienced staff.
Improving Quality, Service Levels, and Workforce Stability
The impact of optimized recruiting extended across myriad performance metrics.
Hiring candidates with stronger technical and communication skills improved first call resolution, allowing patients’ needs to be resolved more efficiently.
“Hiring the qualified candidates has led to an increase in our first call resolution,” Martinez said. “These agents understand our systems, follow provider protocols, and are proficient at navigating our various platforms to assist callers effectively.” Service levels improved significantly, increasing from 54 percent (in 40 seconds) in 2023 to 63 percent in 2025.
Retention also improved dramatically. “In 2023, our turnover rate was at 35 percent,” Martinez noted. “Once the QA team took over the recruitment process, we were able to reduce it down to 25 percent, and this past year, we ended at 20 percent.” Reduced turnover strengthened workforce stability and institutional knowledge.
Reducing Reliance on Contract Staffing
As retention improved, Keck Medicine significantly reduced reliance on contract agents.
“We have reduced our reliance on contract agents by 80 percent since 2023,” Martinez said. Contract staffing is now used primarily for temporary coverage, rather than as a routine workforce solution.
Permanent hires provided greater continuity, stronger engagement, and improved long-term performance.
Recruiting as a Strategic Lever
Keck Medicine’s experience highlights a critical lesson for healthcare organizations: recruiting is not simply a staffing function - it is a strategic driver of operational performance. By aligning recruiting with training and quality assurance, the Access Center ensured that hiring decisions reflected operational needs and organizational culture.
This integrated approach strengthened workforce stability, accelerated training, and improved performance. As access centers nationwide face increasing demand and workforce challenges, Keck Medicine’s model demonstrates that optimizing recruiting operations can serve as a powerful foundation for sustained operational success.
The Keck team shared its QA scorecard; Patient Access Collaborative members can log in and download it here.