the backstory

Vidant’s situation was not unique. In fact, it was the new reality facing businesses around the world. As the COVID-19 pandemic swept the nation, businesses had to make a choice – move your business remote or stop working altogether.

As an industry, healthcare is typically a late adopter, and the work from home trend has been no different. While it is common for coding teams to work remotely, few organizations have adopted a 100% remote CBO model.

The concept of remote work has always been popular with Vidant’s employees; in fact, it ranks as the #1 request in the annual employee survey. Management, previously reluctant to remote work, now needed to embrace and adopt the concept at an unprecedented pace.

the transition

This story isn’t about the technical transition, a one-time task of moving PCs, providing system access, etc.  Instead this is about the operational transition – a shift in mindset; a change that, when done correctly, can be long-term; beneficial for both the employee and employer.  And Vidant was ready.  In their CBO, they had already  created a culture centered around accountability:

a culture of accountability

Workforce App

 At Avid, we provided Vidant with the technology used to measure these metrics. Our Workforce app is the engine used to track productivity, quality, staff utilization and workqueue changes. Data is compiled and reports are automatically generated every Monday. This approach allows management to focus on assessing staff performance and improving metrics on a real-time basis, rather than spending valuable hours manually creating reports.   

A solid culture, coupled with the utilization of our Workforce app, Vidant was able to quickly transition to a remote CBO operating model, and the initial results have been impressive.

the results

The transition went smoother than anyone expected. The change in physical work space did not create a dip in staff performance or KPIs. In fact, the opposite happened. In the 13 weeks since the transition to remote work vs. the 13 weeks prior to transition, the hospital Insurance department has seen their metrics dramatically improve.

A key metric that is tracked with Workforce is staff utilization, or the percentage of time an FTE spends on their core job duty. The core job duty of the Insurance department is working accounts in Epic workqueues. As a result of the work from home transition, Vidant was able to increase the team’s utilization from 93% to 95%, resulting in 130 additional weekly hours of time spent working accounts in workqueues. Working more accounts leads to a reduction in workqueue volumes, and ultimately a reduction in outstanding A/R.

Because this transition has been so successful, Vidant is moving its 80+ Insurance team employees home permanently, with Customer Service soon to follow. This solves a major issue they were facing – lack of office space. As revenue has grown due to expanding services and acquisitions, Vidant has been increasing headcount to keep up with the additional volumes. As a result, there was only one desk available in their two existing locations. Moving to a remote environment means they don’t need to lease a third location. Instead, they will be able to consolidate the remaining on-site employees into a single CBO location.
Employees are happier too. And they have held up their end of the bargain. They have proven they can be productive and deliver expected results while working from home.

This successful transition to a new remote operating model would not have been possible without having a culture of accountability as well as having the right software to support it.