Explore how integrated Home Care Software solutions can streamline your payroll processing, improving efficiency and reducing errors.
This blog will highlight some of the challenges that Home Care Agencies face in processing payroll, and then discuss potential solutions that Integrated Home Care Software can provide.
Overview
Routinely, payroll week is stressful for Home Care Agencies. Collecting accurate information from different staff, then processing payroll data accurately and in a timely manner is intricate, time-consuming, and challenging. Though collecting payroll information on time is often challenging, prompt and accurate payroll is one of the most important criteria to improving employee satisfaction and retention in Home Health Care.
The payroll process doesn’t start on payroll day. It begins when the first shift is scheduled and continues through payroll day with managing changes to the schedules during the pay period. The seamless flow of data for payroll processing is key to improving the timeliness and accuracy of payroll and can reduce overall workload of payroll processing.
Home Care Software with Integrated Payroll can help Home Care Agencies manage payroll efficiently. This blog will highlight some of the challenges that Home Care Agencies face in processing payroll, and then discuss potential solutions that Integrated Home Care Software can provide.
Challenges in Payroll Processing
For Home Care Agencies, operational efficiency is the most important goal when working towards stable growth. While on-time, intelligent, and efficient scheduling are key parts of operational efficiency, accurate capture and seamless flow of information for payroll processing is essential to employee retention and satisfaction. When processing payroll, some challenges that Home Care Agencies must address are:
Punctual Timesheets
Receiving timesheets – whether electronic, paper, or both – on time is one of the most challenging aspects of payroll processing. Staff at Home Care Agencies juggle a lot of moving parts. Managing late time sheets, their impact on overtime pay, and allocating them to appropriate pay period can be incredibly challenging for payroll staff. Incorrect management of late time sheets will lead to payroll errors and overall employee dissatisfaction.
Shift and Overtime Management
Even when timesheets are reported on time, payroll processors find themselves juggling shift differentials for Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS). Different services require different payrates, and when one employee takes multiple shifts under different services, managing payroll for one pay period for one employee can quickly become complex.
Overtime is common amongst Home Care staff. Calculating overtime, especially for staff that have shifts for more than one line of service, adds to the complexity of the pay period. On top of all that, documentation for all shifts and visits must be complete before approving payroll.
Schedule Management
When the schedule volume is high, reviewing schedule changes can become an arduous task. Time changes, cancellations, no shows, and validations all must be looked over to ensure accurate pay for each employee.
Tracking and Reporting
Tracking and accurately reporting pay rates, service differentials, split shifts, and shifts that span pay periods takes significant effort. The intricacies can easily get lost when scheduling volume is high, and payroll mistakes very quickly lead to payroll errors, additional work to correct the errors, and employee dissatisfaction.
Beyond regular items to track for payroll processing, employee licenses must be tracked as well. Not notifying staff of renewal before their licenses expire can lead to late timesheets and complicate payroll processing.
Solutions to effectively manage Home Care Payroll requirements
Home Care Agencies face an intricate set of challenges when processing payroll weekly, and mistakes are bound to be made. When looking for Home Care Software Solutions that can effectively manage payroll requirements, it is crucial that the Home Care Software they invest in has solutions for all four challenge areas.
Punctual Timesheets
Home Care Software should have integrated scheduling, Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), and Point of Care to collect virtually all service time electronically. Home Care Software should also have the options to maintain pay rates based on employee, service, and location, along with shift differentials. This allows the correct pay rate to be applied upon scheduling a visit or making changes to a visit.
Shift & Overtime Management
Payroll that is integrated with employee profiles and scheduling should maintain a database of pay for weekend shifts, holidays, and shift differentials. It should also manage overtime rates and follow rules per various states’ regulations. That way, employees will get paid appropriately for overtime.
The right Home Care Software should provide proactive overtime warning at the time of scheduling and help home care agencies to optimize overtime. Home Care Software should also calculate overtime accurately at the time of payroll processing. It should also allocate late time tickets and schedule changes correctly for the appropriate pay period for overtime and shift differentials.
Schedule Management
Home Care Software should have configurable validations to proactively check for potential payroll issues, such as overtime, at the time of scheduling. Integrated payroll processing in Home Care Software will automatically split a shift that spans a pay period and manage overtime and shift differentials without manual intervention. When a visit is scheduled, it should apply corresponding pay rates to the appropriate shift and pay accordingly. Finally, it should split the shift automatically for Payroll based on services provided during the shift.
Tracking and Reporting
The right Home Care Software will capture accurate start and end times for the shift for both EVV and clinical documentation. It should validate the shift for completeness of documentation before approving it for payroll and provide advanced notification for expiring licenses. Home Care Software should have configurable validations to proactively detect errors during scheduling and payroll processing.
Home Care Software with Integrated Payroll will provide standard interfaces to payroll services like ADP, Paychex, Paylocity, etc.; it will interface with software like Quick Books and GP Dynamics for ease of use.
Conclusion
The mundane, but time-consuming aspects of payroll processing can be streamlined and effectively managed by the right Home Care Software. Integrated payroll can save Home Care Agencies processing time, reduce unnecessary overtime costs, ensure accurate timesheets, reduce payroll costs, and improve agency bottom line. The right Home Care Software with integrated payroll will provide standardized interfaces and APIs to improves the payroll process and minimizes manual efforts and workarounds, thus improving the operational efficiency and the bottom line of Home Care Agencies.
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.
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