FEATURE sTOrY One of the best reasons to consider a telework model is employee satisfaction. For those people who have the discipline and internal motivation required to successfully transition to the home office, there is no turning back. THe jOurNal OF THe HealTHCare BIllINg aND maNagemeNT assOCIaTION 19 This finding underscores that telework is not for everyone. However, working from home is not the only factor that drives productivity. Controlling the work environment can positively correlate to an employee’s ability to stay focused on the task at hand. Cutting costs remains a high priority for businesses and their employees. This is where there is a strong case for telework. according to global Workplace analytics, a typical business can save more than $11,000 per person per year, and telecommuters would save between $2,000 and $7,000 per year.3 adopting a remote workforce may not eliminate your corporate location entirely, but it could reduce its size. Telecommuting might also make better sense for the employee. With no commute, teleworkers have reduced costs. Our auditing supervisor says working from home is extremely beneficial for her. “my home-based job saves me money on the obvious things like travel and uniform expenses. more importantly, it allows me to spend the time it used to take me to get home from the office with my family.” Teleworkers see the cost and time savings as a benefit of their employment, which can lead to less staff turnover. One of the best reasons to consider a telework model is employee satisfaction. For those people who have the discipline and internal motivation required to successfully transition to the home office, there is no turning back. “I left my work-from-home job with straightline to move back to Pennsylvania to be closer to my aging mother. I worked in a large, multispecialty physician’s office and missed working from home more than I expected,” says straightline’s posting supervisor. “I jumped at the chance to return when straightline offered me the chance to work for them again. I’ve never been happier.” another point to consider is that teleworking can take different forms. more than 80 percent of the company staff works from home, with some residing in different states. The staffing ratio is 1 biller to every 2.4 providers, whereas industry averages are typically 1:1.4 I serve as the director of operations for straightline and my position is office-based; however, I telework periodically to perform special projects or to meet deadlines. The company has a smaller real estate footprint than comparably sized billing companies – four offices within a larger office suite of other small businesses – since the majority of staff work from home. Telework remains one of the major recruiting points, allowing us to lure top talent away from the physicians’ office. What Are the Drawbacks to Telework? going back to the stanford university study, half of the participants chose to return to the office, citing a number of reasons, including the loneliness of working from home, lower rates of promotion, and poor performance at home. Perhaps even more telling, the office-based workers were given the chance to transition to telework, and only one-third chose that option.5 Workplace culture might play a role in this. Our home-based workers are experienced, often certified, medical billing professionals who are performing the same job as the 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. medical biller in the physician’s office. There is little flexibility in the schedule, which is something many people associate with working from home. This is unlike the call center environment the participants of the stanford study worked in, where they were constantly being sent new work. Telework requires a level of accountability and discipline that is normally present in a supervised, structured office environment. This does not refer to the threat of punishment, but rather the selfcontrol demonstrated by people who know what needs to be done and have the intrinsic ability to do it. some people are cognizant on what to do and then cannot follow through on it without external motivation, and, conversely, some are willing but just do not see the big picture. While both of these employees can be valuable within a team, they are not viable work-from-home candidates. Two of the biggest contributors to a failing work-from-home model are childcare and workspace. Working from home is not an excuse to eliminate daycare or after-school care, and telecommuters need a dedicated office space. Increased productivity at
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