Today's education session focuses on selecting the right software platform for Private Duty Nursing Home Care agencies.

The Origins of Private Duty Nursing

Private Duty Nursing has undergone quite a transformation since the late 19th or early 20th century. During that time, Private Duty Nursing allowed caring for one patient at a time. In some states today, this is still true. However, many states allow a private-duty nurse to care for multiple patients at the same time. The private duty nurse stayed at the patient's home and provided care for 24 hours, and nurses were hired and paid for by the patient.

Early nursing schools trained the nurses mainly for Private Duty Nursing. Private Duty Nursing has really evolved over a period of time to what it is today.

The uniqueness of Private Duty Nursing

Private Duty Nursing is different from your traditional home health as it requires skilled care for medically fragile patients. The care is typically provided in longer shifts from 8 to 12 hours and for a limited number of patients over a longer period of time. In the Private Duty Nursing field, the nurse or LPN gets to know the patient as a person and can really become quite attached to their patient.

The final point of Private Duty Nursing's uniqueness is that the care provided can be in multiple settings such as the patient's home, school, or even a group home setting.

Unique challenges of Private Duty Nursing

Next, I would like to highlight the unique challenges of Private Duty Nursing.

Scheduling. The first area of challenge in Private Duty Nursing is scheduling. As you all know, scheduling in long hourly shifts poses many unique challenges not experienced in the traditional home health arena.
Finding Clinicians. Finding clinicians with the skills and availability that match the patients' needs can really be a struggle. Managing split shifts when care is provided in multiple settings and keeping schedules within authorized hours is also a unique challenge. And finally, managing overtime, and keeping it under control, while also keeping up with the constant changes and schedules can be extremely frustrating.
Clinical Documentation. The second area of challenge in Private Duty Nursing centers on clinical documentation. Utilizing software developed for visit-based documentation opens the door for inefficient documentation and patient care. Entering a long list of medications and keeping up with medication change orders also poses challenges. Preparing static flow sheets and medication administration history and collecting vitals and measurements multiple times during the shift poses many challenges. Private Duty Nursing also has the challenge of personalizing a patient's care flow sheets and requires communicating care changes to clinicians at the Point of Care. And finally, post review of documents for missed medications, treatments, vitals, etc., can be time-consuming and stressful.
Communication. The third area of challenge in Private Duty Nursing centers on communication. Communication with clinicians and patients is vital. A HIPAA-compliant secure communication method is key in assuring everyone is on the same page and that a record of these communications can be accessed at any time. Another challenge is real-time medication and treatment changes and real-time communication of care plans and care flow changes. Alerts for missed medications, treatments, vitals, and measurements are necessary to maintain your compliance. And finally, the ability to share messages and clinical documentation with the patient and the family can also be cumbersome.
Billing and Authorization. The fourth area of challenge in Private Duty Nursing focuses on billing and authorization. Private Duty Nursing presents some very complex billing requirements for Medicaid and Managed care. Keeping up with authorizations and scheduling within authorized hours is important to ensure compliance with your authorization. And finally, there is a significant challenge of manual effort to meet all billing requirements and effectively managing accounts receivables and collections.

Features to look for in a Private Duty Nursing Software

Now let's take a look at some key features to look for in a Private Duty Nursing software

Scheduling

The first area we will address is scheduling features. Ease of use is the key to effective scheduling, for instance, to view all open shifts and available employees all in one screen. Being able to match employees by intelligently matching their skills and preferences with that of the patient, having the ability to publish patient open shifts and shift offers to get a pool of available employees can significantly reduce uncovered shifts, thereby increasing revenue.

Managing shift offers, overtime, and authorization limits is also a must in any Private Duty Nursing software. And finally, schedule validations to minimize scheduling errors can prevent a lot of headaches.

Clinical Documentation Features

The second area we'll look at is some key clinical documentation features needed in Private Duty Nursing software. First, easily switching from documenting vitals and measurements, such as vent settings, seizure observation logs, output, etc., and medication administration are key. A clinician must have access to their schedules, a patient's clinical summary, and their prior clinical documentation to improve their care quality. A clinician must also have the ability to personalize a patient's care flow sheet as all patients do not require the same care. A clinician must ensure that medication and treatment changes are reflected at the point of care and real-time.

A Private Duty Nursing software must provide dynamic, not static, medication and treatment records. A Private Duty Nursing software must also provide real-time alerts for missed medications, missed vitals, and missed measurements. Effective communication between shifts to improve the quality of care and having the ability to print medication and treatment and administration history easily is essential.

And finally, Private Duty Nursing software must also be able to produce consolidated clinical documentation for billing.

Communication Features

The third area we'll look at is some key communication features needed in Private Duty Nursing software. The software should be able to provide you with HIPAA-compliant tools to effectively communicate with employees and patients and allow you to access the history of these communications at any time. Another critical feature is to have real-time point-of-care and back-office communication of medication changes and treatment administration. The software should provide real-time alerts for missed medications, missed vitals, missed measurements, and real-time schedule monitoring for the late start, early end, or missed treatments. The software should provide tools to communicate the plan from one shift to another. And finally, a family portal for families to view schedules and clinical documentation is a must-have in any software.

Billing and Authorization

The final area we'll look at is key billing and authorization features needed in Private Duty Nursing software. First, the software must be able to bill in CMS-1500 or UB format, based on the insurance, with the ability to send claims directly to Medicaid, if needed, linking authorizations to schedule to keep schedules within the authorized hours and to keep you from billing for hours that are not authorized.

A Private Duty Nursing software must also have the ability to bill split shifts to different payers and allow an agency to set up claim validations based on individual payer requirements. It must also have the flexibility to customize claim formats for different payers to reduce manual efforts. And finally, Private Duty Nursing software must provide effective tools for an agency to efficiently manage its collections and accounts receivables.

These are some of the key features a Private Duty Nursing software should have for effective management of any Private Duty Nursing home care Agency.

CareVoyant – Home Care Software Solution

Welcome to an overview of the CareVoyant, Home Care Software solution.

For over 20 years, CareVoyant has been a leading cloud-based Home Care Software provider located in Rolling Meadows, Illinois. CareVoyant provides an integrated cloud-based software solution for Home Care agencies providing Private Duty Personal Care, Private Duty Nursing, Home Health, and Behavioral Health Services. You can manage all of these services on ONE software, under ONE patient and ONE employee record. CareVoyant functions streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, and bring operational efficiency.

CareVoyant business intelligence tools identify trends and exceptions that can be both clinical and financial, to help healthcare providers make more informed decisions.

CareVoyant scheduling is an easy-to-use tool that will allow the scheduler to manage all schedules on one screen. CareVoyant intelligent matching feature matches employee skills, patient preferences, employee availability, travel time and distance, and other factors to come up with the matching employees to fill a shift or visit. CareVoyant allows agencies to publish shift offers and available shifts to employees. This report will provide a pool of employees willing and ready to work the shift or make the visit. CareVoyant's schedule alerts will proactively detect issues, such as duplicate schedules for patients and employees, schedules beyond authorization, employee expired licenses, and much more. And it will also alert schedulers, thereby reducing potential scheduling errors and conflicts.

CV Miles will calculate employee travel time and distance for the shift or visit, optimizing the employees' utilization. This improves the home health care agency's revenue as the caregivers are focusing more on patient care and less on travel or unproductive time. With the optimized travel time and distance, agencies can reduce their overall travel cost. Without integrated travel miles calculation functions, agencies may have to utilize third-party tools to manage travel time and miles. This will lead to additional costs and inefficiencies.

Integration with authorizations will prevent the scheduler from scheduling visits or shifts beyond authorization limits, eliminating non-billable visits or shifts. Integration with billing and authorization will significantly reduce time spent on creating charges and payroll entries and improve operational efficiency.

CareVoyant's clinical and point of care operates on android tablets, Google Chromebooks, Windows laptops or tablets, or Apple laptops or tablets.

CareVoyant's clinical and point of care application integrates intake, order entry, 485 or plan of care, scheduling, and billing.

CareVoyant has a complete library of Briggs forms and assessments with real-time integration with SHP for clinical analysis.

For Private Duty Nursing home care agencies, CareVoyant point of care can handle complex and unique documentation requirements such as eMAR/eTAR and electronic flowsheet.

CareVoyant CV mobile is an easy-to-use platform for EVV using GPS. With its real-time schedule and aid care plan documentation, CV mobile captures GPS location, tasks performed, and time in and time out at the point of care for each shift or visit. CV mobile has real-time monitoring of missed shifts or visits and missed tasks and is integrated with authorizations, scheduling, billing, and payroll. You can also exchange HIPAA compliant secure messages with your aides and automatic schedule reminders, shift offers, and events notifications, such as an automatic notification that a license or credential is expiring soon.

CareVoyant's billing and accounts receivable features a complete and comprehensive billing engine designed to manage disparate payer requirements for Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Personal Care, Home Health, and Behavioral Health Services. CareVoyant can bill Medicare, Medicaid, Medicaid Waivers, Private insurance, MCOs, and Private Pay.

CareVoyant provides effective revenue cycle management by integrating intake, eligibility verification, authorizations, claims and statements management, electronic remittance, and collections in a single seamless solution.

CareVoyant allows agencies with multiple programs to provide a consolidated billing statement for all services to a patient. Agencies can also get consolidated financial and statistical reports across multiple lines of business.

For more information on CareVoyant, please visit our website at www.CareVoyant.com, or you can call us at (888) 463-6797, or you can contact us by email at josephg@CareVoyant.com.

Thank you, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

About the Author

Joe Gura is a Senior Account Executive at CareVoyant. He is responsible for the sales of CareVoyant’s flagship platform for home health, private duty, and hospice providers.

ABOUT CAREVOYANT

CareVoyant is a leading provider of cloud-based integrated enterprise-scale home health care software that can support all home-based services under ONE Software, ONE Patient, and ONE Employee, making it a Single System of Record. We support all home based services, including Home Care, Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), Home Health, Pediatric Home Care, and Outpatient Therapy at Home.

CareVoyant functions – Intake, Authorization Management, Scheduling, Clinical with Mobile options, eMAR/eTAR, Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), Billing/AR, Secure Messaging, Notification, Reporting, and Dashboards – streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, improve operational efficiency and agency bottom line.

For more information, please visit CareVoyant.com or call us at 1-888-463-6797.