Balancing Work and Family

Owner: Joyce Thomas, 47

Current business: Chino Hills, California-based Medical Reimbursement Specialists, a Medicare-compliance company that has had three lives. Initially MRS handled electronic claims processing for local physicians. Two years later,

Thomas decided to use her experience to train other women to process claims from their homes. During that time, she helped start 500 affiliate businesses, providing them with hardware, software, training, and support. Now Thomas contracts with hospitals nationwide to present Medicare-compliance seminars.

Employees: One. When she was training women how to do electronic claims processing, Thomas had multiple offices and 15 employees.

Year founded: 1987

Previous life: Thomas worked in the healthcare industry for 20 years. She has been a midwife, a clinical nurse and a manager of multimillion-dollar medical groups in Los Angeles and Orange County, CA. Thomas holds a master's in healthcare administration.

Why she went into business: "I needed to stay home to take care of a new baby and my two girls, then aged 9 and 13. I had moved further east of L.A., and the commute to the doctor’s office where I was working was intense — two hours a day. I found that I’d rather commute to Memphis, Chicago, or Atlanta by plane to train others than drive two hours a day around L.A."

Was most scared about: "I probably should have been scared, but when I left the L.A. doctor’s practice, I had four or five consulting clients. I left a salaried position with clients in my pocket. Once you have clients, it’s not that hard to get more."

Best thing about being your own boss: "I can set my own hours and decide if I want to do something or not."

Miss about working for someone else: "I would love to have someone pay for my trade newsletters, journal subscriptions, and regional conference meetings, but that’s the trade-off."

Average day like: "When I’m on the road, I leave on Sunday and hit five cities — all located within an hour of each other in the same region — and return home on Friday. I do that twice a month. If I’m on the road, I arrive the night before a seminar. That night I’ll relax, have dinner, try to get to bed early. I’ll get up at 7 a.m. to make sure my conference room is set up for the 30 to 40 people who usually attend my seminars. A seminar company takes care of registering the participants and all of the seminar details.

"The seminar runs from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. with an hour break for lunch — an easy day. The other two weeks is family time. I spend that time at home, usually on the Internet answering clients’ questions and updating the content in my workbooks. When I’m gone, I’m gone. When I’m home, I’m home — I do the Little League thing, keep up with my two boys. My girls are now in their early 20s. I’m also a grandmother, so I do a little of that role when I’m home."

Biggest daily challenge: "Making my family let go. I don’t allow them to call during the day when I’m on the road. I refuse to carry a cell phone because I don’t want to be that accessible. I tell them only to call if they are dead or hemorrhaging. And if they are dead, I don’t want to hear about it anyway."

Best source of advice and support: "My husband. He makes it very easy for me to do this. It has to be a partnership. I went on the road when my older son was five months old. We have a great day-care Mom next door, and I figured if my husband could get the kids up, get them dressed, and take them next door and then pick them up at the end of the day, then we would be OK. My older son, now 13, has to take responsibility for his homework. All three of my guys are perfectly capable of doing things themselves.

"My mother is my best groupie. She calls me every night that I’m on the road. I’m 47, but my mother still checks in on me and I love it. Every once in a while she even joins me on the road."

Separate business and personal life by: "When I really need to get something done on one of my days at home, I take my younger son next door to his day-care provider. When I started this business it was nearly impossible to separate my work life from my home life. The business and the baby were on top of each other. I would be processing claims and the baby would wake up. I would do claims at 2 a.m. after feeding the baby and putting him back to sleep. Email has made things a lot less intrusive: You answer email at your convenience."

Reward to self: "My reward is getting to stay home full time some parts of the month. Every once in a while, I also buy myself a really nice ring with my income. My mother always did that too."

Hopeful retirement age: "Why retire? I don’t believe in the Social Security system anyway. I believe in figuring out your thing and doing it, of being the master of my own destiny. Women in my family have always done their own thing."

Advice to other entrepreneurs: "You have to put yourself in a position to seize the opportunities. Perception is 100 percent of success — how you present yourself is how people perceive you."

— Susan Smith Hendrickson