With many healthcare workers working remotely due to the reduced patient volume and to avoid cross infection, your practice must have a plan in place that spells out who you authorize to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic, and specifically how this will be accomplished.

Why Work Remotely During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

There are several key reasons why you might want to have at least some employees work remotely during this crisis:

• Heed off reduced staff. With schools across the nation closed, many employees with small children have no childcare arrangements other than for a parent to remain home. Allowing employees to work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic permits them to provide the required childcare while still accomplishing daily work.
• Slow the spread. The science behind social distancing is simple: reduce contact between people to minimize disease transmission.
• Be proactive. If NY is any indication of what’s to come in other states, getting your ducks in a row now to figure out how some of your healthcare staff can work remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic is a wise move.

Who Can Work Remotely During the COVID-19 Pandemic?

When thinking about what industries can have employees work from home, healthcare doesn’t top the list. After all, doctors and nurses are the frontline face of this pandemic. While that may be so, there are several healthcare positions that can transition to a home office.

Consider the following people to have work from home:

• Billers and coders: Employees who handle billing and coding for patients and insurance companies are top remote work candidates during the COVID-19 pandemic. Put daily quotas in place to measure more time-consuming claims denials and less involved evaluation of benefits work. Have the manage establish tight quality control measures such as sample reviews.
• Front desk workers: Employees whose daily duties mostly involve phone work such as answering inbound calls and scheduling appointments are also likely candidates to transition to a home office. If your practice uses a VOIP phone, send one home with each scheduler. Consider having a phone rotation to provide flexibility for lunches and breaks. You can also have employees download phone apps like Phone.com and issue headsets. This technology allows schedulers to log in and answer calls hands free.
• Management staff: Nurse managers, Project Managers, and Health IT professionals can usually perform their job duties offsite. You can ask managers in charge of inventory to come in before or after hours to perform duties and set up the office for the day. Although they would be on site, they could perform their duties in self-isolation.
• Telemedicine staff: Staff involved in telehealth care can transition to work remotely. Now physicians and telemedicine triage nurses can perform services from home. CMS is allowing telehealth to fulfill many face-to-face requirements for clinicians to see the patients in inpatient rehab facilities, hospice and home health.

What Home HIPAA Compliance Is Needed?

Before you send people home to work, you should ensure employees are using technology fit with appropriate security functionality.  Even when employees are working remotely, you must still try to minimize HIPAA noncompliance. Here are some ways you can ensure that your staff have the equipment and technology that will minimize health information breaches:

• Provide secure laptops to avoid home computers corrupting PHI sensitive data.
• Issue screen protectors to minimize Personal Health Information (PHI) being seen by unintended parties at home
• Use a secure remote connection such as a virtual private network to avoid taking and storing sensitive documents at home.

How Can You Motivate Productive Remote Work?

While working remotely may subject your staff to different challenges and interruptions than they face in your office, with a little planning you and your staff can be productive. To help create a conducive home-working environment, follow the below tips:

Overall Strategy

• Start and Reevaluate: Remain flexible with your policy and expectations because this is uncharted ground for everyone and the COVID-19 situation is rapidly evolving. You can establish initial expectations and then assess after the first 14 days and make needed adjustments.
• Prioritize Moving At-Risk Workers Home: Consider the age of your physicians and have those in a high-risk category for COVID-19 work from home taking telemedicine appointments.
• Set Hours and Expectations: Clearly define the remote employee’s work schedule and duties.
• Catch Up on Education: Offer employees training webinars to view during any downtime.

Daily Interactions

• Hold Virtual Daily Stand Up: Do your daily huddle via teleconference so employees can still see each other when giving daily updates.
• Touch Base Regularly: Maintain contact throughout the day via phone, email, text, and video chat to keep tabs on productivity.

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