The holiday season brings a unique set of challenges for healthcare facilities every year. Between increased patient volume, provider time-off requests, and the natural unpredictability of winter months, maintaining adequate coverage becomes a juggling act. While many hospitals and healthcare organizations focus on schedule approvals, shift exchanges, and last-minute hiring needs, there is one critical mistake that continues to cause avoidable disruptions:

Failing to Plan for Recruiter and Administrative Downtime.

Most facilities prepare for clinicians being out of office but, they forget that the people responsible for hiring, onboarding, credentialing, and scheduling also take time off for the holidays. And when even one step of the staffing chain slows down, the entire system feels the impact.

Why This Mistake Happens

During November and December, attention naturally shifts to clinical coverage. Facilities concentrate on filling holiday shifts, approving PTO, and ensuring patient needs are met. But behind every physician, NP, PA, or locum provider is a recruiter, a credentialing specialist, a scheduler, or an administrator working to get them in the door.

When these key support roles take time off, sometimes simultaneously, tasks like these can quietly stall:

Finalizing contracts
Processing credentialing paperwork
Verifying licenses
Securing emergency privileges
Confirming lodging and travel for locum providers
Responding to urgent staffing requests
Coordinating onboarding for January start dates

A few delayed emails or an incomplete file may seem small, but during the holidays, these delays can snowball into:

Coverage gaps
Last-minute cancellations
Delayed start dates
Overextended providers
Increased burnout for existing staff

This isn’t a reflection on the staff themselves, everyone deserves time off. The issue is not anticipating the slowdown and failing to build an operational buffer before people step away.

The Real Cost of This Oversight

When administrative workflows pause, facilities may find themselves scrambling just days before major holidays or worse, left with shifts unfilled.

Consider these common scenarios:

Scenario 1: The Locum Who Can’t Start

A facility secures a much-needed locum tenens provider for the last week of December. Everything is set—until credentialing realizes one final document still needs verification. The credentialing lead is out until January 2nd. The provider never starts.

Scenario 2: The January Rush

January often brings a spike in new assignments and provider transitions. If onboarding tasks aren’t completed pre-holiday, facilities face a stressful backlog once teams return.

Scenario 3: The Unanswered Staffing Request

A department suddenly needs coverage for December 24–26. The request hits a recruiter’s inbox after they’ve already started PTO. By the time they return, the window to secure coverage has closed.

These issues aren’t failures—they’re predictable holiday season dynamics. With proper planning, they’re also preventable.

How Healthcare Facilities Can Avoid This Holiday Staffing Pitfall

Here are practical steps facilities can take to stay ahead:

1. Map Out Internal Holiday Schedules Early

Identify when recruiters, credentialing specialists, schedulers, and administrators will be out. This creates visibility into coverage gaps on the operations side—not just the clinical side.

2. Front-Load Credentialing and Onboarding

Anything that can be completed before Thanksgiving should be. Especially:

File completions
Background checks
EMR access
Travel confirmations
Privileging

3. Communicate With Your Staffing Partners

Your locum agencies and recruitment partners need to know your downtime schedule, too. The earlier they know:

Who will be reachable
What deadlines exist
Who the backup contact is

…the smoother things will go.

4. Build a “Holiday Contingency Workflow”

This might include:

Auto-forwarding staffing emails to a small team instead of one person
Weekly check-ins leading up to the holiday
A pre-approved “rapid credentialing” plan for emergencies

Small adjustments can save enormous stress later.

5. Plan January Now

Everything that’s not buttoned up before the holidays becomes January’s problem. That includes:

New hire starts
Renewals
Schedule resets
Contract extensions
Annual compliance requirements

Treat January 1st as a deadline, not a start line.

Alumni Staffing

Hospitals and healthcare facilities know how to plan for physician PTO, holiday surge volumes, and winter unpredictability but, the most overlooked mistake is forgetting to plan for their own administrative team’s holiday slowdown.

By proactively preparing for recruiter, credentialing, and scheduling downtime, healthcare leaders can avoid preventable coverage gaps, reduce stress for clinical teams, and ensure smooth operations from December through the new year.

A connected, prepared team is the best defense against holiday staffing challenges and the best way to protect patient care during one of the busiest times of the year.

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The Most Overlooked Staffing Mistake Healthcare Facilities Make During the Holidays