Second Article in the Series: Address Staffing Challenges. To read the first article on Revenue Cycle Management, please click here.

In the second article in the series on how home care agencies can navigate staffing challenges, we look at how efficient authorization management and scheduling can help home care agencies to get the most out of limited resources.

Authorization and Plan of Care management

Authorization/Plan of Care Management

The following are some of the critical features for effective management of authorization and plan of care.

Integrated and effective authorization management is vital to improving compliance with physicians' orders and authorization.
Proactively monitor expiring authorizations and initiate the reauthorization process to eliminate the possibility of providing services without authorization.
By creating schedules from authorization or care plans, agencies can stay within physicians' orders and authorized services.
Monitor and manage frequency compliance with the authorized plan of care through scheduled reports.
Monitor and manage authorized hours and delivered hours for the authorization period.
Monitor and manage authorized hours and dollar amount
Prevent staff from scheduling services beyond the authorization period and frequency
Ensure you schedule and deliver all authorized hours/visits to improve compliance, patient satisfaction, and revenue

Scheduling

The following are some key features that emphasize the importance of effective scheduling to optimize the use of field employees, reduce uncovered shifts, minimize overtime, optimize travel time, and reduce overall cost. These features will improve operational efficiency in the scheduling area and the bottom line for home care agencies.

Easy-to-use schedule views for schedulers to manage demanding and ever-changing requirements effectively
Create schedules from authorization schedule templates to reduce schedulers' time and effort.
Intelligent matching will provide schedulers with a list of available employees matching the needs and preferences of the patient.
Make shift offers to matching employees to all or a subset of matching employees – saves communication time for schedulers.
Publish open schedules to matching employees so employees can apply for the shifts – This will give schedulers a list of employees willing to take the shift.
Reduce time spent on managing split shifts.
Send schedule reminders to employees and patients to reduce missed visits or shifts.
Batch scheduling functions help schedulers manage employee call-outs, sickness, patient hospitalization, etc.
Configurable schedule validations to proactively detect scheduling issues and address them upfront
Automatically verify schedules for billing and payroll based on pre-defined validations – Saving time and cost.

Revenue Cycle

Scheduling integrated with authorization will prevent schedules outside authorization and reduce non-billable shifts and claim denials.
Configurable schedule validations to proactively detect potential claim issues and resolve them.
Automatically bill split shifts to appropriate authorizations, reducing manual effort and potential collection issues.
Automatically split schedules at midnight for billing with correct dates.

Payroll Integration

The following are the critical elements for effective payroll integration.

Efficiently manage overtime, reduce overtime costs and manual efforts, and improve accuracy.
Tight integration with authorization reduces or eliminates paying for non-billable shifts/visits.
Configurable payroll validations will proactively detect issues such as incomplete documentation, data entry errors, etc., and improve payroll efficiency.
Split shift management will reduce manual efforts to pay appropriately for services.
Configurable travel miles & time rules will help agencies pay appropriately for travel. This will improve the bottom line by reducing manual efforts and travel costs.
Work on payroll throughout the pay period without doing all the work on payroll day – reduce stress on payroll employees.

Employee Satisfaction

The following are the critical scheduling features to improve employee satisfaction.

Effective schedule tools will help schedulers spend more time scheduling and less time reaching employees before confirming the shifts.
Intelligent schedule matching will help agencies schedule employees appropriately, reduce travel times, and improve employee productivity.
The employee portal helps agencies communicate with employees
Allow employees to select their shifts based on convenience by publishing open shifts and offers.
Schedule reminders to employees and patients will reduce missed visits
Improving the timeliness and accuracy of payroll will enhance employee satisfaction
Schedule reminders

Conclusion

CareVoyant understands that leveraging technology and automation to get more out of scheduling staff is critical for home health care agencies to meet the staffing challenge. CareVoyant's integrated scheduling functions and standard payroll interfaces with partners will improve the operational efficiency of the schedule management process and the bottom line of home care agencies providing one or more home base services - Private Duty Nursing, Non-Medical Personal Care, HCBS, Home Health, Pediatric Home Care.

Read other articles in the series:

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.