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Q&A with J. Paul O'Haro(Daily Oklahoman, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Aug. 17--Today's Q&A is with the president and chief executive officer of CompOne, a medical billing and practice management company in Oklahoma City. Tell me about your company's experiences in bringing back about 40 jobs from India after offshoring in 2002. When I got here (in fall 2004), I met with a few employees, and they expressed their dissatisfaction with the quality of work from overseas. I then met with our clients and recommended to the board that it was in the best long-term interest of our clients that the work be done here in the United States. What were the main complaints from clients? Mostly rework. There wasn't enough attention to detail. Medical billing requires a fair amount of understanding of the health care system. It was a quality issue; you don't really get the cost savings if you rework everything that's being done. Patriotism was another reason. What positions were in India? Payment posters, claims follow-up and data entry. What was the reaction from your U.S. employees? What was interesting for us is that one of our employees started calling it onshoring, and the name stuck. We try to instill in the employees here that if we care about our work and are doing the best job, you can keep those jobs here. Is offshoring typical in your industry? There is a trend toward offshoring to India or the Philippines. Part of the reason is the salary and wage difference, but there's also a lot of pressure on businesses like ours to provide a competitive service at good price. There's a lot of pressure from shareholders to see returns. Copyright (c) 2006, The Daily Oklahoman Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News. For reprints, email [email protected], call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA. |