Ring of Hires Provides Innovative Hiring Solutions for Medical Employers

An enterprizing physician from the Tampa region has a new concept that is set to revolutionize how the medical community hires. Dr. Paul Toomey has developed a n all encompassing program called Ring of Hires that takes the hassle and worry out of hiring, placements, employee satisfaction monitoring and much more.

One of the most interesting features involves literal mapping of employee candidates and screening them based on a number of criteria, including wages, to cut the number of interviews to only significantly qualified candidates.

Dr. Toomey sat down with the Florida Business Forum Podcast host Sam Yates to share news about Ring of Hires and how employers and employee prospects may indeed find there is a new hiring solution that is better than anything on the market today.

Transcript

Sam Yates: 0:06

Hello everyone and welcome to another informative episode of the Florida Business Forum Podcast. Let's open the Florida Business Forum floodgates and let the information begin to flow. Here's your Florida Business Forum information guru and Anchorman Sam Yates. Hello everyone, the information floodgates are open and the information is flowing for yet another episode of the Florida Business Forum. I'm Sam Yates and I'm pleased to say that we have an entrepreneur and physician who has some insight into business for all of you in the healthcare and medical fields and we're gonna get into what he is doing. But I would also like to welcome officially Dr. Paul Toomey. Dr. Paul is an MD and I always like to add the the alphabet behind the MD and that is FACS in your particular case and for those are scratching their head going what is that? That is the Fellows of the American College of Surgeons. And you know that's important that I will discover why that's important at the moment. But Dr. Toomey is also an very innovative entrepreneur, accomplished surgeon as I just mentioned, a visionary dedicated to revolutionising the the healthcare hiring. And he has created something that is very, very interesting and very unique. It's called ring of hires. It's a hiring solution. It's really a job solution for many, many people. And I want to get into the details of that in a little bit. But Dr. Toby, welcome to the program.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 1:48

Thank you so much, Sam. Appreciate it.

Sam Yates: 1:51

Tell us a little bit about your background. I always love starting the program with learning more about our guests.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 1:57

Yeah, so. So I originally grew up in Hagerstown, Maryland, and a small town in western Maryland and went to Duke University for undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering. I met my lovely wife, Karen Mata to me and she's a year older than I. So she went to medical school before me and I followed her down to the University of South Florida. I did a fellowship in Peda, pancreatic, biliary surgery and minimally invasive robotic surgery. She was my sugar mama for a few years. And and so because my training was much longer, she's now retired after 10 years and taking care of the kids. So we have two children. One just started middle school. Savannah, she's 11. And Maddie, she's eight years old.

Sam Yates: 2:43

And that is a full time job. Indeed. You know, today's children are growing up faster and faster. You know, I'm familiar with the medical practice. At one critical point I was on the the forefront of starting America's best urgent care. And one of the the biggest challenges that I had as the founder of that organization was talent. I mean, there are so many people looking for jobs, or we're at that time, still aren't to a certain degree. But how do you sort through it all? You have a process that makes that rather easy explain regal hires to us.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 3:25

Yeah, so so we're gonna hire. First of all, the concept came because I have a medical practice that started eight years ago, we've grown we have two other physicians, a physician assistant and, and a larger staff. So so I've been hiring for some time now. And and what happened was, two years ago, I asked my office manager, I was like, Hey, we're gonna hire someone for the front desk, like six months ago. He's like, Yeah, it's just really tough. So you know, as a physician, we kind of leave it to the office manager. So I kind of got in the weeds. And I realized, you know, kind of, indeed is the platform that most people go to. And really, it's just a, it's classifieds on the internet. It's essentially, you know, even though I'm younger guy, I remember classifieds. And and so this is just the modern classifieds, lists and lists. And what I found is that we couldn't find our job, you know, is buried in the third, fourth fifth page, and its list base. And you know, there's enough real estate in Florida where I live now. And so you're always on Zillow, Redfin, that sort of thing. Or if you're traveling, you're gonna get some coffee, we'll get on Google Maps and, and you look for coffee. Everything's map based. So you know, what, why are we doing this for real estate and some other things, but we're not doing it for hiring. So that was kind of the seed. But then from was I thought I needed a better indeed. And that was kind of the easy part. You know, that. So that's kind of the basis of it, but then we realize it's the whole hiring process. It's a problem. So, so you know, Dedes oversaturated with too many people that are not medical, and so there's not really as many medical people We're applying for a job. So we needed quality candidates first. So that's why we're focused on on healthcare in general. The second thing is, you know, once you get, you get a candidate, you try to interview them, well, you leave a message, they don't answer the phone, and you're playing phone tag. And so we've created the interview process online that just seamless. So we went from 50%, no, no show rate, note, oh, call rate to 100% interview rate, that, then guess what, after the interview, you like them, and then the numbers don't match up. So we've made it on the platform, we're both the candidates and the posters, put their rate so that, you know, before you get to that point, you already know that, that you're going to match up somewhere. And the process goes on and on. So onboarding is a problem and, and keeping the happy employees is a problem. So we actually help you with the entire process, we become part of your practice, essentially. And we're no longer just there for hiring, but also to keep your staff happy so that you have pleasant patients going forward.

Sam Yates: 6:05

Being involved in multiple sectors of the medical community, even to this day. I know that that just has to be off the wall. I can't wait to try it popular, well received a fair statement.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 6:19

Yeah, on both ends, you know, we just hired our first employee through it. And I, I didn't tell her that, you know, I was part of the process of making it and, and, you know, so I want to get some objective input from her. And she's like, and it was the first time I use it was so easy. You know, it's much different than all the other platforms. And then same thing for from the employer side, you know, we talked to not just physicians, but also office managers, a lot about the pains, the frustrations throughout the entire process. And so yeah, it's very much well, sort of well received.

Sam Yates: 6:52

As we were in the hiring process for the venture that I mentioned a few minutes ago, recruiting is expensive, there is just no way around it, it's expensive. What about ring of hires, what, you may not want to go into all the details, but is it expensive.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 7:11

So it's not so the problem with indeed and these other job boards, so you may get a free trial, you know, a free free posting, but you're really not getting any traction. And the reason is, is because other people are paying for it and getting to the front. So I just talked to an office manager just the other day, and she paid over$1,000, one month, just for one posting to get three candidates that were none of them were qualified. So you know, we wanted to change the model to subscription base. And the reason is, is because we don't want to up charge people, like the whole point for us is the opposite of Indeed, indeed want you to hire a lot. We want you to never have to hire again. You know, so you get with our platform, and we become part of your practice so that we keep everybody happy in your office. And the only time we want you to hire is when oh, we're growing, we're getting we're getting bigger, we need to get more people not because people are leaving. And so we also have it so that AI is actually talking to your staff intermittently to see, you know, are they happy? Are they doing okay, is are there places that we can improve within the practice. And so we actually have a predictive hiring method as well. So we can tell you before you even know you need to hire the you need to hire. So it says much different. You know, I'm

Sam Yates: 8:26

to be real honest, excited to hear about this. And, you know, you're going to be hearing from me going forward, because I want to see how this all turns out. It is, from my perspective, so unique that I can just see this taking off and spreading like wildfire. But what you're seeing right now, what are the hot job categories?

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 8:50

Yeah, so. So just like all jobs across across the US, you know, the job seekers kind of went away for a while after COVID. And that was kind of a big reset. And same thing in medicine. So unemployment rates low right now, because a lot of people left the workforce. And so pretty much across the board in medicine is tough to hire. And it sucks. And I don't say that word often. But hiring sucks. And I looked up synonyms for sucks and there's nothing you know, like I just explains it. And so there, there really are no jobs that are not hot for job seekers right now. It's really on our side as employers that it's tough to find people. And it's frustrating that we still say to this day, I can't find anyone to hire, or I can't find the right job. You know, like it's 2023 people are landing rockets, we should be able to make that process of connecting people seamless. There shouldn't be anything in the middle or we're just a connection between the two.

Sam Yates: 9:52

So if I'm hearing your right we still are under that effect of COVID to MIDI many respects. But we're gonna come out from under it, I suppose.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 10:02

Yeah, I do think there are some indicators that were coming out of it now. You know, inflation was a big deal as well. So that's, that's adding another layer of complexity to it. Because everybody's trying to figure out, you know, what is the correct pricing point for for hiring as well, because people are bounced around different jobs, because other you know, someone's desperate. So they're paying more, but inflation is there, too. So are they really paying more? Are they just hitting the inflation amount that it should be now? So? So it's it's complex right now. And but I do think that there's, there's some hope down the line, I think we are starting to come out of that a little bit.

Sam Yates: 10:38

You know, I can hear the office managers right now say, get me a pen, get me a pen, I've got to find this guy. How can someone get in touch with you?

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 10:45

Oh, it's very simple, just go to ring of hires.com. And you can either sign up and we'll get a what's called Firefly guide to walk you through the process. So you get a personalized concierge service, essentially, that will help you build an AI for your office even but, but also figure out exactly what you need whenever you're doing your hiring. The other thing is you can book a demo on brink of fires.com

Sam Yates: 11:11

surgery centers a few years ago, that was the hot item, ASE is still a hot item here in Florida now that you're here in Florida, like everywhere I was going in my travels around the state, there was a surgery center. That is is that still a hot commodity?

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 11:28

Very hot commodity. You know, so I operate at the hospitals, but also to surgery centers. And, and so yeah, it's a big thing. I think, you know, the insurance industry is pushing more and more to do things at ASCs. It's lower cost for the patients, and it's just the bottle is a little bit less heavy than the than the hospital system. So you know, patients kind of get in and out a lot faster. And it just it's much more of a seamless process for patients at the at the ambulatory surgery centers. So yeah, it's absolutely here to stay. And I think it's just going to grow.

Sam Yates: 12:06

Plus another one that you that I'm seeing now. That is micro hospitals and hybrid hospitals, the big multi storey buildings, still a use for them. But I'm seeing more of the the microhybrid pop up throughout the state, are you experiencing the same.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 12:27

So I have a fellow that moved out to the West End, he went to a micro hospital. So his surgical group owns a essentially, it's an ASC that can end the patients. And so that's kind of like the the micro hospital that we're seeing. Even in Florida, we can do 23 hour observation in the ambulatory surgery care centers. And so you're seeing more and more move out of the hospital setting and go to these ASCs because really, they don't need to stay in the hospital. It's just that historically, we've done them in the hospital for these a little bit. You know, still major operations, especially orthopedic operations, that that can be done as an outpatient. You know, for us mastectomies. We used to do mastectomies and and patients stay the night and then go home the next day, but ambulatory care centers were able to do a lot more their

Sam Yates: 13:17

Herndon nursing. During COVID. Of course, we had to see all of the footage of nurses who were overworked, overstressed, and I feel for them. But what is the the climate in the nursing industry right now?

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 13:33

Yeah, it's it was a big shift during COVID of a lot of traveling nurses. And there's a lot of frustration on on nurses that were not traveling because these travelers were coming get paid twice what they were getting paid. So there's a lot of turmoil in this setting right now. The dust seems to be settling some now traveling is not as big of a thing for the nursing staff at least. But certainly, nurses are. There's nursing shortages, whether you're at the surgery center, or at the hospital, or you know, our medical assistants in the office, there's nursing nursing shortage is everywhere.

Sam Yates: 14:12

Is a ring of hires connected to, for example, the nursing schools or is it connected to the universities as our physicians are graduating and getting into their internships? Are those connections that are important to think of hires?

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 14:27

Yeah, so we've already started the process. We started with technical schools first, you know, kind of our first run is small medical practices, small dental practices. And so we tend to need medical assistants or receptionists or medical coder billers, they tend to go to technical schools as opposed to nursing schools. The nurses tend to go to the hospital settings. And so we're not as involved with the nursing schools because that's where they tend to go and the hospitals already have their hiring solution. Essentially, we're we're taking all those things that were unobtainable that The hospital has it making it attainable to the small practices.

Sam Yates: 15:03

I noticed that your area code if I if I recall, is I was looking into your background and and I do that with every guest just so I can be up to speed with the guests 813 area code is that where you are located in that region?

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 15:19

Yeah, we're in the Greater Tampa region. I've lived here for almost 20 years now. So I'm kind of a Floridian but grew up in Maryland. And so yeah, we're, you know, I live in Bradenton, Florida, just south of Tampa. And, you know, I did all my training in Tampa.

Sam Yates: 15:37

But you have a national reach. And and I would suppose, since it's on the internet, international reach for that matter.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 15:44

Yeah. So So our focus is on the United States, you know, laser focus on that, even Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, but, but essentially, the United States and Americans, but we do get a lot of people that are signing up, you know, internationally that want to get a job in the United States. But and so some practices that are asking us internationally to help them as well, really, we're not focused on that we're focused on the entire United States for now,

Sam Yates: 16:10

that was an incredible area for us, as we were starting the the urgent care practices of America's best, we were using a model of bringing in physicians who wanted to make the transition to become a physician in the United States. And, you know, there is a process to do that. So we were hiring them not as physicians, but as future owners. And but there's, there's a tremendous amount of people looking to come to the United States. So I'm going to toss that out there that I know you're laser focused, but we really still have physicians worldwide looking to the United States as the gold standard.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 16:51

Yeah, and it's not just physicians, it's nurses and other staff as well. So, you know, one of the hospitals right down the street, they're, they're hiring a hired a service that a lot of nurses are going to come from the Philippines, and they're going to house them. And and so, you know, there are different routes, definitely to fill these voids. And so it's definitely going to play a part in the medical business going forward. But But I think, you know, not not just medical and so streamlining that process of getting people with with J, one or H h1 B visas, these work visas, I think is important process nationally.

Sam Yates: 17:30

You must have read my mind, my partner had that to urgent care venture was an immigration attorney. So it's like, yeah. So again, I know people are going to want to reach out both employers and potential employees, how may they contact you? Yeah. So

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 17:49

Go to ring of hires.com. You can book a demo or sign up right there. And you know, the rest of them will take it from there.

Sam Yates: 17:57

All right. Is there anything that we have not touched upon? That is important for our audience to know about today?

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 18:04

Yeah. So, you know, really, what we're coming up with is much more much different than indeed, I always thought we just needed a better indeed. And really, we just needed a better process. And so we essentially helped me through the entire process. There's one thing I guess, I didn't talk about, and it's called Campfire. AndCampfire is our way to make your staff happy, but also help with predictive hiring. And so we have a, essentially an automated system that every one to two weeks, they're just going to be asked a few questions of, you know, are you happy today? Or how are you doing, you're gonna get a monthly report about the pulse of your practice. And really, we're just looking for inflection points changes in that practice. We're trying to make things better for your practice along the way. And so, so we're going to add more value to the practice than just hiring. But, you know, the main thing is, you never have to think about hiring again.

Sam Yates: 19:00

Technology at its best, but it takes that entrepreneur behind the technology who brings it all together. So Dr. Paul Toomey, surgeon extraordinaire, innovative entrepreneur, you know, I could just go on and on and on with the accolades. But my pleasure to have had you here on the program today to talk about rank of hires.

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 19:21

Oh, thank you so much, Sam. I appreciate the time. Now one final

Sam Yates: 19:25

question. Will you come back for another episode?

Dr. Paul Toomey, MD, FACS: 19:29

Oh, yes, sure. Yeah, be happy to, you know, maybe some milestone we'll come back and we'll talk about where we are.

Sam Yates: 19:35

Looking forward to it. And to all of you listening to the the Florida Business Forum, I want to not only thank Dr. Tubi for being here, but thank all of you for listening today. Have a great day everybody. The Florida Business Forum is dedicated to showcasing Florida businesses and CEOs of all sorts to promote their business or not for profit in the only Business Forum of its type in Florida thanks for tuning in and remember the Florida Business Forum is now accepting guest applications have a great day everyone and stay tuned for more business