Edoc Service: Interview With CEO, Jim Mullaney

“We can be a partner with any company that needs platforms customized to provide real solutions.”

John Gambill, Jr., interviewed Jim Mullaney, CEO of Edoc Service. Jim has served as their President and CEO since 1997. Edoc Service (Electronic Document Service) is a virtual company (people who work remotely) that provides digital tools and services for greater business productivity and collaboration.

Today Edoc Service has grown and evolved into four separate divisions, which include Scriptus, Virtual, eSign, and Office.

What Is Edoc Service And How Are You Evolving To The Modern Workplace?

Jim: We’ve been operating now for nearly 23 years. Our staff is totally virtual. We focus on providing a good quality of life for our employees. They can work from home and when they need to. Everyone has a role and a responsibility to get their work done.

We are becoming a total technology company. We have a number of technology platforms that we’ve been working on.

One that we are really excited about is in our transcription area, where we are developing a new platform called Scriptus.

Prior to Scriptus, we had a platform named Scribe. Its purpose was to allow a person to transcribe voice files called in by doctors. The doctors called into a digital voice server to record their notes. Actually, Dan Oliver of VC3 - formerly GO Concepts helped us install and set-up the server for this service.

The doctors would call in their reports and transcriptionists across the U.S. would pull down the recording via a VPN (virtual private network) and transcribe it using Scribe. Then the files are uploaded to an encrypted website where the doctors could review the reports, edit them and then sign them with the click of a mouse.

The signature part of this process became eSign, our electronic signature, remote signing platform. (Read our blog on Edoc eSign)

Today, Scribe has evolved into Scriptus. We’ve moved from a digital voice server to our own cloud-based program. The transcriptionists no longer need a VPN to receive the recordings.

The next phase of Scriptus is our phone app. The dictators can now dictate via the phone app where the files automatically upload to Scriptus. What we’re essentially doing is removing the need for phone lines. This will provide better voice quality and ease by users.

John: I can see your concern there and it sounds like you have a great solution in the works. I know Dan has enjoyed working with you and your staff over the years.

Jim: Dan Olivr helped us back in the day when we had racks of servers. Our phone calls were dropping out. The phone company techs were replacing very high-level switches which were very expensive. [VC3] was providing consulting to us and Dan found the problem right away. He tried to tell the phone company technicians what it was, but they ignored him. Finally, one of the senior VPs in a meeting with us listened, pointed to Dan and said, “This guy knows his stuff!” They finally agreed that Dan was right, and the problem was quickly solved. If they had just listened to him, they would have saved us a lot of aggravation.

How Did Edoc Service Get Started?

Looking at the history of our company, we started out in administrative support. I hired five people who worked from home. We began handling data entry projects and took off from there. We had a digital voice system where people could call in and dictate what they needed to be transcribed.

One of our people happened to be a medical transcriptionist. A medical company, small back then, very large today, began using us for their medical transcription needs. Today they still use our services, and they’ve grown greatly with them.

We got out of the data entry work because I knew technology would replace this. I noticed we were doing a lot of marketing projects like brochures and mass mailings. I knew what we were doing wasn’t going to pay off for our clients even though they asked for them. So, we began doing telemarketing for our clients. This is how Edoc Marketing got started. We set up phone teams with a project leader and from four to six callers. We had no problem selling this service for a nice monthly fee.

We tracked every lead and every result, and we looked at the data to figure out why one client was successful, and one wasn’t. We came up with seven critical factors for marketing success.

We launched a service called Edoc Sell. We wouldn’t take clients unless they followed our seven critical factors. It went well, however, this didn’t work for long. I discovered I’m not a very good consultant… I’m a better “insultant!”

It was about this time that the medical transcription business shifted. Medicare had just changed their rules. A client called me in to discuss this. The change was happening in only two weeks. We needed to staff up our business quickly. We upgraded our servers significantly, which allowed us to have 10,000 hours of dictation stored.

At this point, we had to go from 17 to 30 transcriptionists within two weeks. The reason we could do this was because these people worked remotely and we weren’t confined to just local individuals. Our client was very impressed with this. So they gave us the remainder of their dictation business. Then we went from 30 transcriptionists to 60.

About two years ago, I decided that we couldn’t just be a medical transcription company alone. Thankfully we’re a very innovative company. We’re heading into development now.

How Is Edoc Helping Organizations and Businesses?

Jim: We’ve got this now to the point where we can be a partner with any company that needs platforms customized to provide real solutions. Places like Warren County Board of Developmental Disabilities, Clermont County Board of Developmental Disabilities, and Butler Tech are using eSign exclusively.

Another one of the projects we have on the shelf is Counter ESign. We’ll be pushing eSign out more and more. 2019 has been all about development. 2020 will be heavily into launch. This is our focus.

Digital Labor Law posters now include write-ins. We have a platform for this. We’ve identified all the posters across the nation and have a subscription platform available.

We’re soon adding a 100% verification to the platform. An automatic email will go out to the staff asking them to read the poster and click a link acknowledging that they’ve read it. Once a business has this, they are prepared if the Labor Department comes in to check on what they’re doing. We have many companies already subscribing to this.

We’re thinking about launching Edoc Virtual next year. It will help companies learn how to have a virtual workforce. What many are doing can be done at home. It will be scalable for different-sized companies. Millennials don’t want 50- or 60-hour workweeks. They want a life. That’s where we’re ahead of the curve.

John: What I hear you saying is everything you’re working on centers around great technology. And this great technology makes it easier for people to do their job. It’s like what we do at [VC3]; reduce risk, make people more efficient, and give people time back.

Who Is Pre-Edoc Jim Mullaney?

Jim: I came from a corporate background at Marriott starting in 1969. I spent 23 years with Marriott during their peak growing years. When I left, I went to work for their staffing company in Cincinnati for four years. That’s where I got the idea to start Edoc Service.

My title at this staffing company was technical operations manager; I’m not technical at all. I was a troubleshooter for the company. We had some serious issues that I was fortunate to get control of. I noticed the branch offices were having trouble finding qualified administrative staff. I got the idea to use stay-at-home moms who could bring their talent to the table. The CEO didn’t want to consider this. So, I quit and started Edoc Service!

My wife panicked, but I told her it would work, and it did. Everyone got paid for five years except for me. And here we are today.

I turned 72 this year. I have an investment plan in place for staff to take over if I decide to retire. I hate thinking about this, but I have to.

My wife died three years ago. And I just recently got engaged! … Something that’s very positive for someone my age.

John: Your story and mine are very similar when it comes to starting our businesses. My wife was a teacher, and I was an office manager and successful agent for a very large real estate company when I decided to walk away, take a chance, and start VC3 - Formerly GO Concepts with Dan Oliver and Dan Hollingshead back in 1997. Just like yours, my wife was worried, but I believed in the vision and saw the potential, and she believed in me. And here we are today, just like Edoc Service. I wouldn’t change a thing. It’s been a wonderful experience.