Private Duty Home Care agencies can use the right technology and software platform to manage the challenges posed by unique and demanding requirements of providing skilled care at home. Using the right tools will enable home health care agencies to bring operational efficiencies to the organization and take advantage of these new opportunities.
Starting January 1, 2022, Medicare will require Home Health Agencies to submit a one-time Notice of Admission (NOA) instead of Request for anticipated Payment (RAP). Medicare has been phasing out RAP payments for the last two years. The NOA is a one-time submission that establishes the HH POC and covers 30-day payment periods until the patient is discharged.
Software platforms will have to be adjusted to accommodate the new PDGM billing process. The following are some of the requirements.
Comprehensive, consistent, and complete clinical documentation is critical for home health care agencies for the quality of care to the patient and optimum reimbursement. Improving the quality of clinical documentation will significantly enhance the quality of care and patient satisfaction while reducing the risk of compliance issues during surveys. Compliance issues during the survey may lead to reimbursement delays or reductions.
Home Health Care Agencies should implement Clinical Documentation Improvement (CDI) programs to understand that clinical documentation starts at referral and must be managed throughout patient care (Admit through Discharge).
Seamless flow of operational data for payroll processing is key to improving the timeliness and accuracy of the payroll process. This can also reduce the workload for the payroll group. The payroll process starts when the shift is scheduled, not just on payroll day.
This blog highlights some of the challenges that private duty nursing agencies face in processing payroll and discusses potential solutions that integrated software can provide.
As a Home Health Care Software provider, we find ourselves with questions about the nuances of home care services. Some of the questions we get asked are:
What is Private Duty Home Care?
Are RNs required for Private Duty Home Care?
How is it different from Nursing Care?
Do you need specialized software to manage Private Duty Home Care Agencies?
During the recent times, there has been an increasing demand as well as the adoption of electronic medication administration records (eMAR) Software, especially by caregivers providing Private Duty Nursing. By employing a system such as eMAR (electronic Medication Administration Record) can not only ensure that medication errors don’t occur, but also achieve a whole host of other advantages. In this article, we talk about the functionalities and the importance of Electronic Medication Administration Records (eMAR) Software for Private Duty Nursing Home Care Agencies.
Recognize that the needs of Private Duty Nursing for pediatric care are very specific. While this could be a profitable service line, the requirements such as round-the-clock nursing, ability to connect with children, more complex scheduling, and most importantly, the right nursing talent, make this a very challenging area.
Interestingly, most of the currently available software have limited features to handle or not be able to handle the billing requirements, and as such, in-home outpatient therapy services will pose unique challenges for scheduling, documentation, and billing.
A software platform designed to handle both home health care and outpatient services will provide a unique advantage to agencies.
The best is yet to come for Home Care Agencies. With many studies now pointing to a revival and boom phase coming up for Home Care agencies, we bring your tips and techniques to manage your organization’s online presence. Unfortunately, most home care agencies invest little time and effort in building their online presence. It is not as expensive as you think. Here are six things you can do to improve your agency’s brand.
As the country ages, the Home Care Industry is poised to grow. The US home healthcare market is projected to grow about 7% annually from $103 billion in 2018 to $173 billion by 2026 — outpacing growth in all other care types, including hospital care (+5.3% annually) and physician services (+5.6% annually). The industry has also come into a lot of focus during the COVID-19 crisis as well.
As a leading software provider for Private Duty Nursing, we monitor the forces and trends that are shaping the Private Duty Home Care Industry. The industry is poised to boom in the post-COVID phase as there is a growing preference and shift from institutional to in-home care as the industry shifts.
Electronic visit verification was created to reduce fraud and ensure that people receive the documented care they need. EVV was designed to help verify that services billed for home healthcare are for actual visits made. The passing of the Affordable Care Act signed into law in 2010 made provisions for reducing fraud and over-payments, requiring states to stop Medicaid payments to providers when there is credible evidence of fraud.
CDC has introduced two new diagnosis codes – one for COVID-19 and the second one for Vaping related disorders. CMS has added these diagnosis codes for PDGM as of 04/01/2020.
CareVoyant has incorporated these changes immediately and released an update to all our customers. We made the following changes.
Added the ICD codes to our library
Changed PDGM calculator to incorporate the new diagnosis codes.
The Illinois HomeCare & Hospice Council hosted its 2020 Annual Conference, “Focus on the Future”, between March 3-4 in Lombard, IL. The conference convened hundreds of leaders & experts in Home Healthcare, registered nurses, and medical practitioners to discuss the current state of home care, share the latest information in the field of home care, enable market participants to network and serve the patients better through calibration.
Private Duty Nursing Agencies should choose software that addresses their unique clinical documentation, scheduling, and billing requirements. The software should be easy-to-use and enable Nurses to keep up with continuous care documentation during the shift while providing efficiency in communicating changes in real-time to the nurse at the point-of-care.
Further, the requirements of home care services are many and the software should allow for rendering of other services without needing to switch between multiple software platforms.
CareVoyant, as an industry pioneer, has strived to bring you the best of both with an integrated home care software solution for agencies providing multiple lines of service. With the power of one database, not only do you reduce your investments, but also eliminate redundant processes while getting unified clinical, administrative, and financial views.
Patient-Driven Grouping Model (PDGM) is the new payment model for the Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS). PDGM relies more on claims data and less on OASIS data for reimbursements. CareVoyant will be implementing software enhancements to help Home Healthcare Agencies to stay efficient and compliant in the PDGM world.
