The Physician’s Guide to Remote Office Workers [Updated]
7 key steps to use remote office workers efficiently in your practice
Remote workers can transform your office for the better. Follow this step-by-step guide to smoothly integrate remote workers into your office staff, while avoiding common mistakes & pitfalls.
If you're like many practice owners & managers, you struggle daily to recover from the inundation of tasks at the office.
Adding remote workers to your office team can help. Effective remote staff will help you provide a higher level of care & a better experience for your patients overall, to make your practice:
More organized
Less stressful
More profitable
However, remote workers can also be a hassle. Unless you have a clear road map for how to integrate remote workers to your office, you might find yourself wasting a lot of time & energy, and not achieve the results you want.
This article will show you how to do just that…step by step.
Ready? Let’s get started.
Step 1: Set Appropriate Expectations
“Begin with the end in mind.”
Know what you want...and what you can reasonably expect to achieve.
This first step is one that many practices overlook. Remote workers can be incredibly helpful in some areas. But like any staff, they have both strengths & limitations. In our experience, practices that have bad experiences with remote workers often have misguided or unrealistic expectations of what remote workers can or will do. On the other hand, when a practice manager takes the time to understand precisely where & how remote workers can be most effective, they are well on their way to an efficient & profitable integration of remote workers into their office workflows.
At ProMedica, we refer to our remote workers as “Max Value Professionals,” or MVP’s. This is because they provide absolute maximum value possible to your office for the cost.
In our experience, the most important points to understand about MVP’s are the following:
Good English skills are available if necessary
Hours will be synchronized with the rest of staff
They will answer to your office manager or appropriate staff member
Repeatable tasks are easiest
Expect hyper efficiency
You must reduce the need for specific communication & direction
Be creative!
Utilize all appropriate technology
A common factor in all of the above is this: the practice owner, manager, & staff must assume responsibility for utilizing MVP’s effectively. Remote workers do not function on their own. Rather, they fill very specific roles within your office workflow, to help you reach a new level of efficiency, productivity, & profitability.
And, contrary to what you might expect, remote workers will not replace your existing staff, or threaten their jobs in any way.
Having set the appropriate expectations, your next step is to identify precisely which roles your remote staff will fill.
Step 2: Identify Tiers of Tasks
Different tasks require different skill sets, and matching the skill set to the task is one of the fundamental keys to improving efficiency. Over the years, we have observed that most medical practices have a chronic mismatch between their office staff skill sets & the tasks at hand.
To remedy this situation, we recommend the following process:
List every task that must be (or should be) completed in your office
Remember to list all separate components of each workflow
Include any task which would be better performed by a person, as opposed to an automated system or software. For example, a reminder phone call could be automated, but a call from a live person will provide a better experience for the patient.
If you’re just starting your practice, you should try your best, and if possible work with someone who has practice management experience
Review your list from #1 again, & add in all tasks that would be beneficial, even if they’re not currently being completed regularly
Rank each task by the level of training & expertise required to perform it
We recommend using a scale of 0 to 5, with 5 being the highest level of expertise
A level 1 task would be a simple, repetitive task that either cannot be completely automated, or where a personal touch would add value in some way over automated solutions
Level 0 will be a task that can be completely automated using a technological solution, without negatively impacting either quality of work or patient experience in any way
Rank each employee within your office by the same 1-5 scale
Your office manager should be considered level 5
Your lowest skill level for any on-site employee will be level 2
Off-site remote workers will be considered level 1
Map each employee/position to the tasks they are currently responsible for
After completing #5, take note of the following any discrepancies between employees skill level & current responsibilities:
Employees responsible for tasks below their skill level
Any level 1 or 0 tasks currently performed onsite by employees
Any tasks (particularly at levels 1 or 0) that are not consistently completed
The goal of this exercise is to establish a high-level perspective of your office workflows. Armed with this new perspective, you will now begin to develop & implement strategies to improve efficiency.
Step 3: Develop Strategies to Match Employees to Appropriate Tasks
To succeed with this step, you must match the complexity of each task with the human capability of each employee or worker.
Each member of your team must be matched only to tasks at his or her skill level. Any mismatches must be identified & corrected.
This process will take time. You want to avoid surprises, and make sure the transition to new processes & workflows is smooth with as few hiccups & interruptions as possible. Make appropriate investments in training and other resources, to support your staff in their updated roles.
By adding remote workers to your team, you are able to eliminate tier 1 & tier 0 tasks from your onsite, in-house staff responsibilities . Remember, every onsite employee is considered level 2 or higher. Utilizing expensive, onsite employees on tier 1 & 0 tasks is a waste of your resources. As part of the restructuring of your office workflows, you will shift all tier 1 tasks to offsite support workers - MVP’s.
Step 4: Identify Required Skill Sets for Offsite MVP’s
For our own MVP clients, this is the step where we become heavily involved.
In reviewing your list of tier 1 tasks, you will notice certain requirements for each task. For example, specific tasks may require one or more of the following:
Proficiency with Microsoft Excel
Consistent attention to detail when performing data entry
Ability to speak fluent unaccented English
And so on.
It’s important to note that many level 1 tasks will require only a specific skill set. For example, an MVP who makes phone calls to patients will need to speak fluent unaccented English, whereas one who is responsible for data entry will not require the same proficiency in spoken language. One way or another, you will need to hire workers with the appropriate skill sets for each level 1 task.
Step 5: Recruit Remote Workers/MVP’s
Hiring reliable remote workers is not easy.
Fortunately for you, it’s one of our specialties.
ProMedica’s global team will recruit high quality MVP candidates based on your needs. Your office manager will then interview each candidate, and will make the final decision on whether to bring each individual onto your team.
Our team provides a secure work environment for each remote staff member, with appropriate technology access, with HIPAA compliance as appropriate. Your office will alse be responsible for certain technology costs, depending on what software & services are required for each worker.
Remote workers function as members of your team, reporting directly to the office manager or to the appropriate supervisor. In general, your remote staff will work a 40-hour week alongside your in-house staff, taking lunch breaks & rest breaks at the same time, and so forth. However, it is important to note that your remote workers will be contractors, not employees, but their work should still integrate seamlessly with your onsite staff.
And, as with any new staff, you must invest in training to equip them to succeed.
Step 6: Hire & Train New MVP’s
For many office managers, training remote workers can be an intimidating proposition.
At least, it used to be.
However, since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen physicians & office managers become much more comfortable working remotely. Most senior managers now have experience with various tools for online communication & collaboration.
The real key to success in this step goes back to step #1, above: set appropriate expectations. If you expect a remote worker to simply appear & start doing what you want, you will be disappointed. But, if you invest in training that person, and take steps to help them integrate them into your existing office systems & processes, you put yourself in position for good results.
It’s time to go live.
Step 7: Launch MVP & Integrate
At this point, your MVP will begin working in her designated role.
As with most things, you will probably want to start small & gradually ramp up to full capacity. Shift a small batch of tasks to the new MVP, and review them to confirm that everything is done properly. If all goes well, try a larger batch of tasks, then review those to be sure everything is in order. Repeat this process until the MVP is working at full capacity.
Your in-house staff will need time to adjust to working with MVP’s. Remote collaboration is different from face-to-face interaction with coworkers, especially if your office hasn’t utilized remote staffing solutions before.
The key here is consistency. Once your staff work with the new MVP’s for a period of time, they will become accustomed to the shift in their responsibilities & workload. Their own workdays will be more productive & less stressful. Even the mood around your office might improve, as the backlog of tasks dwindles & finally disappears, so that everyone has more bandwidth to focus on their most important work.
If you have come this far, you are well on your way to creating hyper-efficiency in your office.
How do you know when you have achieved hyper efficiency?
By measuring it.
Next Steps: Measurement, Evaluation, & Optimization
Now that your MVP is live & working with your team, you can focus on other things.
Right?
Well...yes, and no. Restructuring your workflows & adding MVP’s to your team is certainly a major achievement. But, creating hyper-efficiency in your office isn’t so much a goal as it is a continuous process.
So the bad news is, you’re never done.
The good news is that the more you do, the easier it gets. And, once you go through this process the first time, you will have much more time & energy for high-level, strategic thinking. We recommend you establish the following routine, or something similar:
Your office manager should schedule at least 1 hour per month for evaluation & strategic analysis of your office operations
Generate important reports beforehand
Listen closely to your staff
Take note of complaints, especially repeated issues
Ask directly what’s working & what could be improved
Pay special attention to the relationship between clinical & office staff, & take note of any problems or bright spots
Repeat steps 2 & 3 above
This routine will help you to build on your success & keep ahead of any major issues. Over time, you may identify a need for additional MVP support, or for different skill sets in your current MVP roles. In that case, you’ll repeat steps 4-7 as needed.
If you need help, please get in touch with us. Our team has extensive experience in MVP implementations, in all sorts of applications. We currently have MVP’s performing the following services for practices:
Prescription renewal calls
Remote calling support
Claims scrubbing
Appointment reminder & confirmation calls
Follow-up calls after appointments
Billing confirmations before
And more.
We enjoy working with clients to find new applications & use-cases for remote office workers. We believe that many practices, especially smaller independent practices, stand to benefit immensely from this approach.