What are consumer-directed services?

Consumer Directed Services in Home Healthcare

Consumer Directed Services (CDS) are home healthcare services offered by Medicaid or Medicaid waiver programs where the consumer (Patient) can hire the caregiver and coordinate the services authorized. Consumer Directed Services are also known as Self Directed Care services. Consumer Directed Services programs will allow the consumer (Patient) to select and direct the caregivers to provide the services authorized by Medicaid. The patient's ability to choose a family member or a friend to provide the services needed will increase the caregiver's trust and comfort level.

Shift Towards Consumer Directed Services

Consumer Directed Services are offered in one form or the other in over 40 states. Consumer Directed Services grew 20% in 2020. With COVID-19 permanently changing the way health care services are delivered, CDS will continue to grow in the future. Home Health Care Agencies providing personal care non-medical services under various Medicaid programs will need to prepare to manage this growth. A home healthcare software platform that can handle CDS and other services (Private Duty Nursing, Non-Medical Personal Care, and Home Health) will help agencies manage Consumer-Directed Home Care Services' growth.

Benefits of Consumer Directed Services

The most significant benefit of Consumer Directed Service is the flexibility the patient gains to hire the caregivers to provide the services authorized. The patient can hire friends or family members to provide the services, increasing the patient's trust and comfort level.

Many home care agencies find it challenging to hire and keep enough Personal Care Attendants to provide services. Allowing the patient to hire friends or family members in the community will alleviate this problem.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, patients may be uncomfortable letting outside Personal Care Attendants come into the house and provide the needed services. Hiring a family member or friend through Consumer Directed Services will make the patient more comfortable and willing to receive services.

One of the challenges with Personal Care Services is matching up the patient service requirements and Personal Care Attendants' availability to meet these requirements. Patients may have to adapt the timing of the services to the availability of caregivers. Consumer Directed Services provide the patient the flexibility in scheduling the caregiver to meet the patient's preferences.

By hiring a family member and providing flexibility in scheduling, Patients can help a family member looking for additional work.

Consumer Directed Services can potentially keep patients receiving care at home instead of receiving the services in a nursing home or other inpatient setting. Receiving care at home will reduce the cost of care for Medicaid and Medicaid Waiver programs.

Challenges for Home Care Agencies

Traditional home health care agencies usually manage Consumer Directed Services. Even though the patient can hire the caregiver and schedule the services, home care agencies will bill for the services provided and pay the caregivers.

This unique situation creates scheduling challenges for the agencies. Even though the agencies are responsible for billing and paying for the services, they will not schedule caregivers like regular employees. Since the patients schedule the caregivers, agencies will not have any exposure to or control the schedules until caregiver submit their timesheets.

Medicaid or Medicaid Waiver programs authorize Consumer Directed Services with limits on the number of hours of services provided per day or per month. These limits add another layer of challenge to the agencies. They have to limit the services provided under authorized hours even though they do not have complete control over the hiring of caregivers and managing their services.

When services go over authorized hours, the agencies face the uncomfortable task of telling the caregivers that they may not get paid for the services provided over authorized hours.

An effective software platform should have the functions and features to help agencies manage the challenges posed by Consumer Directed Services.

Software Platform Features for Consumer Directed Services

The following are some of the features required in a home healthcare software platform to manage Consumer Directed Services effectively.

Ability to enter and manage patient information, authorization, and authorization limits
Ability to allow the caregivers to clock-in, clock-out, and document the services provided using smartphones without a schedule
Should create a documentation record linked to authorization in real-time, allowing the agencies to monitor the services and authorization limits
Provide warning messages to caregivers on reaching the authorization limits (daily, weekly or monthly) and full utilization of these limits.
Use the documentation records to create billing charges.
Use the documentation records to create timesheets for payroll.

An effective software platform should be able to accommodate these requirements in addition to managing other services provided by agencies.

Conclusion

CareVoyant understands the demanding requirements of delivering Consumer Directed Services while managing other services like Private Duty Nursing, Non-Medical Personal Care, and Home Health. CareVoyant software platform provides tools that will help a home health care agency effectively manage Consumer Directed Services and other service lines.

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.