Work From Home: Put measures in place

Q. How can I ensure employees are working efficiently and getting things done?

A. Many people in the workforce have transitioned to working from home and there are a couple key components to review when managing a remote workforce.

First, you need to put measures in place to gauge if the work is getting completed on time and if the teams are working effectively. To do this, you need to address workload.

Regardless of the billing platform a provider has implemented, there are several ways to get a high-level view of what is and is not getting done. The first place to look is throughput: What is the total volume of claims being processed and, based on the increase or decrease, do the deposits reflect the same? This should provide a 30,000-foot overview of what needs to be done and whether you are staffed appropriately.

If the numbers do not align, there are two logical places to look. If the volume has increased but the cash is not reflecting that, the on-hold or unbilled claims could be the bottleneck. If the volume has decreased and the cash has decreased, does your workforce have enough to do? The staff may have extra time in the day to help with other areas of the business.

Second, you need to ensure you maintain HIPAA compliance. I have previously mentioned the 10Zig zero client and its pre-configured HIPAA compliancy but you also need to put a HIPAA strategy in place and continue to monitor, train and improve how you protect patient data. We are all judged by Department of Health and Human Services guidelines, specifically completing and maintaining a security and risk assessment. On first glance, this seems like a daunting task, but if providers break it down into manageable pieces, it is much less overwhelming.

John Stalnaker is vice president of sales at ACU-Serve Corp. Reach him at jstalnaker@acuservecorp.com.