The Home Health Care Wire
Your source for CareVoyant and industry news. June 15, 2022
Revenue Cycle Management for Home Care Agencies - Addressing Staffing Challenges
At CareVoyant, we have a strategic focus on improving operational efficiency and have made it a central theme of our development efforts. We empower home care agencies with features that will help them do more with less across care coordination, scheduling, and revenue cycle management functions. This article looks deeply at how each functional area can contribute to optimal reimbursement and accelerate cash flow.
Home and Community-Based Services (HCBS) provide Medicaid beneficiaries opportunities to receive services in their own home or community rather than institutions or other isolated settings. These programs serve various targeted population groups, such as people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, physical disabilities, and mental illnesses.
In the absence of other viable public or private options to finance current and future LTSS needs for people of all ages, Medicaid will continue to be the major financing and delivery system for Home and Community Based Services for millions of Americans. Addressing community-based provider shortages and streamlining access to community-based care that supports functional independence and enhancing the quality of life will remain key objectives of states’ rebalancing efforts as the need for Medicaid HCBS continues to grow.
At CareVoyant, we are empowering home and community-based services providers by developing cost-effective software solutions for care delivery and revenue cycle management.
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.
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.
Home Healthcare Industry News
The CMS National Quality Strategy: A Person-Centered Approach to Improving Quality
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) administers health care coverage for more than 150 million individuals through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and the Marketplace – HealthCare.gov. The vision of the agency is straightforward: To serve the public as a trusted partner and steward, dedicated to advancing health equity, expanding access to affordable coverage and care, and improving health outcomes – the latter being key to this discussion. In addition to its traditional role in coverage, CMS has a critically important responsibility for improving health outcomes, and one aspect of that work is quality.
HHS Leaders Urge States to Maximize Efforts to Support Children’s Mental Health
Agencies across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a joint letter to states, tribes, and jurisdictions encouraging them to prioritize and maximize their efforts to strengthen children’s mental health and well-being. The letter, signed by leaders of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), and the Administration for Community Living (ACL), outlines HHS’ plans to support and facilitate state-level coordination across federal funding streams to advance and expand mental health services for children.
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 care lines of service, including Home Care, Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), Home Health, Pediatric Home Care, and Outpatient Therapy.
CareVoyant functions – Intake, Scheduling, Clinical with Mobile options, electronic visit verification, eMAR/eTAR, Financial, Secure Messaging, Notification, Reporting, and Dashboards – streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, and bring operational efficiency.
For more information, please visit CareVoyant.com or call us at 1-888-463-6797.