Why I'm Giving Up Self-Employment

Have you ever searched how many articles have been written about how to become self-employed? 62 million. Or why the corporate ladder is dead? Not as many, but still a lot. Not only have I been working for myself since January 1, 2000, but I have even written about the benefits of going out on your own on my blog, Createyourself.com. I often reference those rebels for independence, such as Benjamin Franklin, who loved owning their own businesses and creating a nation of their own.

Search "from self-employed to employee" and the only article you will find is by Patty Orsini on The Ladders. She advises that when you do return, you should be ready to explain to your new employer why you want to get back into the corporate world.

Beyond the elimination of the many hassles of being self-employed (e.g. doing your own travel planning, handling your own receivables and payables, making your own sales, recruiting, business development, website design, buying health insurance — or "going to IRS debtors prison", and the list goes on), I thought I'd share why I am returning to the corporate world today.

First, I have been collaborating with and working in the corporate world all along. Since 2000, all of my clients have either been health tech startups, who I helped to get contracts with big health organizations, or big health businesses developing strategies to get bigger. But that is not the reason I have decided to give up self-employment. The reason is the company that I am joining in the corporate world — West Corp. (WSTC)

While you may not be directly familiar with West, you have most likely used their brands. If you've ever been on a conference call, you were probably using the Intercall conferencing and collaboration platform. If you've dialed 911 from a landline, cell phone, VoIP, satellite phone, or even texted to 911 in the US, your communication was routed to your local 911 call center by Intrado. If you’re an employee of any one of over ten thousand companies and you’ve needed help in figuring out your health benefits and what the charges on your medical bill mean, then you have probably been provided access to Health Advocate.

West processes 28 billion telephony minutes a year and sends out 1.2 billion notifications annually, across 672,000 voice ports located across fifteen data centers around the world. They touch every industry, including utilities, retail, financial, public safety, and of course, healthcare. You can check out all their public financials on Yahoo WSTC and see why I like the future of the company.

Since my expertise is in healthcare technology, you can start to understand why I am joining West. West serves all segments of the healthcare industry including payors health services organizations, digital health companies, drug manufacturers and employers. For example, have you ever called your credit card company and been startled when Susan Bennett answered the call saying, "Hello, Gordon Jones. I see you’re calling in from a phone number in your profile." This system takes you through a series of questions based specifically on your most recent activity within that company's accessible data in order to get you to the exact place that you want to be — and the right person you need to speak with directly, if necessary. This is called "Intelligent Call Routing," and West is a pioneer of this technology.

Now, imagine you are a patient of a health system that has 20 hospitals (more normal than you think!), more than 2,200 employed physicians, 45,000 employees, thousands of departments, and hundreds of thousands of phones, faxes, and email addresses you may need to interact with for your care. Based on your experience, do you know any such health system that has just one phone number that is able to get you to the right person you need to talk to, when you need to talk to them, after just a couple of questions? This is what West is bringing to healthcare — and it's only one example of the technology they offer to help make health services in this country more efficient and cost-effective.

For example, say you're a care coordinator for the above health system. For years, you have been assigned to help manage the care for 150 to 200 patients at a time. With all the paperwork and diverse electronic databases you have to access to get the information you need to best care for any one of those patients, you know how difficult that job is today and how much time you waste with activities that have nothing to do with your clinical expertise! Guess what? Your work-load is only going to get harder as we transform our health system from fee-for-service-fix-me-now to one where the health system is paid to keep us healthy and keep us from getting sick.

Now, instead of just being a care coordinator for active patients (still 200 patients), you are going to get assigned to be a health advocate for 2,000 patients, where you are responsible for keeping them healthy and out of the medical system. How on Earth are you going to be able to handle all those people — and the multiples of health professionals you need to coordinate in their care? Here are two examples of how West is helping:

First is the use of an interactive voice response system, which can be programmed — according to a patient's care plan — to reach out to them regularly and ask for the information needed to care for them effectively.

In this video, you hear that the patient was "forgetful" in doing what he is supposed to do. The system realizes this, and initiates an outbound call to ask how he is doing, and if he is prepared to report his blood pressure reading now.

In the next example, the patient is under the care of a coordinator, and is using a wearable device that captures her biometric information automatically and transmits it electronically to the coordinator system.

In this case, if the patient's readings had fallen out of sync, the care coordinator would have been alerted and the system could have automatically initiated a call to the patient. Once she had picked up, the system would have connected her immediately to the care coordinator, along with delivering information to the agent’s desktop about who the patient is and what prompted the transfer. This protocol allows the care coordinator to work at the top of her medical license, while letting the patient feel that the "health system" that the care coordinator represents...

KNOWs who the patient is... SHOWs the patient that they know who she is... and, the patient FEELs that they truly care about her and her health!

These are the types of services and technology that West is deploying into the health system right now — taking the best from other industries and making them better, for use in healthcare. There is much, much more to share, but that’s not the point of this article.

I actually encountered West years ago when I was developing my m911 app, Guardian Watch. I built my Vicinity Based Alert Notification (VBAN) System using West's technology. We got along so well, they invited me to consult with them as they began focusing heavily on developing and providing innovative technology to the providers of health services in this country. This is very important because as the health system becomes responsible for the health of millions in their markets — what we call Population Health — they are going to be required to adopt the automation and communication tools that other industries have had to adopt to scale their operations, and make them more efficient and cost effective to attract and serve their customers.

I will be helping West talk about these strategies, and working with the health systems to adopt and deploy them. The best way for me to do this is as an employee of the company, not a self-employed independent consultant. This is why I am leaving self-employment to become an employee!

Don't worry! I will continue to evolve myself, learn my lessons, and share them with you on Createyourself as always!

You'll always be able to reach me via LinkedIn.

DrJ