How Envision Healthcare Manages 1,312 Annual Cases with Just 3 Administrators

Introduction

Envision Healthcare provides doctors and clinicians to healthcare sites throughout primarily the United States. With approximately 13,000 employees—80% healthcare professionals including physicians and emergency medicine specialists—their workforce is highly knowledgeable about FMLA and actively compares leave experiences with colleagues.

Before implementing AbsenceSoft, the leave department was known internally as the “Leave Us Alone” department. The six-person team was overwhelmed with manual processes. Today, a three-person team manages 1,312 annual leave cases with 100% on-time follow-ups, 77% employee self-service adoption, and a transformed reputation earning employee compliments instead of complaints. By centralizing processes in AbsenceSoft and cross-training the entire team, Andrew Katz and Envision Healthcare achieved operational excellence while creating an employee experience that strengthens organizational trust and compliance.

Opportunity

Manual Processes Couldn't Scale with Growth

As Envision Healthcare grew, the team recognized their manual processes needed transformation. Like many organizations, they relied on Smartsheets and Excel to track cases. Critical information lived in different places – a compliance vendor system, a short-term disability administrator portal, shared drives, and email threads – requiring coordination across multiple systems for each case.

With manual deadline tracking, follow-ups sometimes slipped through the cracks. Forms requesting medical certifications could go unfollowed for weeks, and on-time follow-ups sat at about 40%, creating opportunity for improvement in both compliance and employee experience. 

The team operated with specialists handling specific leave types – one person focused on military leaves, another on workers’ compensation. While this built deep expertise, it created dependencies. When team members took time off, their specialized work had to wait, and different administrators documented cases differently, creating inconsistencies.

“Prior to coming here, the team was known as the Leave Us Alone department because they would not be returning phone calls or emails, because they were so overwhelmed,” shared Katz. Adding complexity, Envision’s leave administrators also handle detailed payroll processing, and missed deadlines meant employees weren’t paid correctly or on time.

Solution

A Purpose-Built Leave Solution, Cross-Training, and Employee Self-Service

Envision implemented AbsenceSoft and restructured team operations. Rather than managing leaves across multiple systems – every case now opens, tracks, and closes within AbsenceSoft. Forms, documentation, case notes, and communications are stored directly within each case, creating a complete audit trail too. 

Cross-training eliminated the specialist silos that created bottlenecks. Andrew worked with the team to map out every leave type in AbsenceSoft’s workflows, then trained all administrators on all case types.

With AbsenceSoft’s structured workflows, every administrator follows the same steps in the same order for each leave type, ensuring consistency regardless of who handles the case.

Automated reminders and tasks replaced manual calendar tracking. Administrators now receive daily to-do lists showing exactly what needs attention. Forms due automatically generate follow-up reminders, eliminating missed paperwork deadlines. “Having a system that stacked out everything for you of, here’s your to-do, here’s your daily task of what you need to do to keep current with this. It’s just been such a game changer,” noted Katz.

The Employee Self-Service portal transformed the intake process too. Rather than fielding phone calls and emails to gather basic request information, employees now submit complete leave requests independently, uploading documentation directly through the portal. “They love being able to get in there and upload the documents, and then text or email with a question,” said Katz. “Once people know that they can talk to who they need to through the system, they do it.”

The medical certification review process became standardized around administrative completeness as required. “We are not trying to become doctors or disagree with a diagnosis,” emphasized Katz. “What we really emphasize with our team in particular is you’re not the medical professionals, you’re the administrators of this. So what we’re looking for is the completeness of the paperwork itself.”

Impact

Doubling Efficiency While Transforming Employee Experience

The transformation delivered measurable results across every dimension of leave management. On-time follow-ups with paperwork improved from about 40% to 100%, eliminating missed deadlines that previously impacted payroll coordination. “When we went out and we got AbsenceSoft, and we got it all together, it just did wonders for us,” shared Katz.

The team also reduced from 6 to 3 administrators while managing 1,312 annual leave cases – an average of 437 cases per manager annually. Each administrator aims to provide a white-glove experience and confidently handles 90-120 active cases at any given time seamlessly. “I just had one employee who got back from a trip from Europe for 9 days. And the other LOA admin and I handled all of her cases really, really well, and we were very excited about how smoothly it went, because, again, AbsenceSoft was a big part of that,” noted Katz.

The Employee Self-Service portal sees 77% adoption. Considering each request would take a minimum of 10 minutes for a leave administrator to intake, this saves approximately 168 hours annually just on intake – time previously spent fielding phone calls and emails to gather basic information. Employees can now initiate requests, upload documentation, and track their own cases.

Compiling documentation for legal defense, which previously took days of gathering files from different folders and systems, now happens in minutes through instant case downloads. “We’ve had cases where we were notified by our legal department where we had to gather all communications and every document… Doing that before would take days. Now, you literally can download it, and it’s just there… a tiny fraction of the amount of time. It’s fantastic.”

The employee experience transformed completely. The department’s reputation shifted from overwhelmed to actively praised, with clinicians now discussing their positive leave experiences with colleagues. “When the turnaround happened, and people were like, wow, people are really liking their leave experience now? What’s going on over there? It was such a dramatic change,” said Katz. The team now receives employee compliments, “They like us. They like somebody on the Envision side, a coworker, rather than somebody who’s on a vendor side… they feel like that customer service just is unbeatable.”

Team resilience improved dramatically. The team went from specialist-dependent to fully cross-trained, where anyone can cover anyone’s cases. “There are a lot of people out there who get really nervous when they lose somebody on their leaves team, because things might fall apart. We used to be that way, but I can say now with 100% confidence and genuine sincerity that it’s not that way anymore,” emphasized Katz.