Software integrates scheduling, billing
Software integrates scheduling, billing
System handles multiple payer and payroll sources
Scheduling clients and billing their payers, especially if the clients have more than one payer source, can be time-consuming. Some private duty providers, however, have found success with a software package that allows them to integrate their scheduling and billing functions.
Scheduling and billing required separate entries on other software packages, says Carey Harrington, administrator of Able Palms Home and Health Care in Largo, FL. The private duty home health agency is managed by the Goodman Group and owned by John B. Goodman. "Nothing integrated the two."
With CareKeeper software, Harrington now enters the schedule of an employee, which interfaces into the payroll and billing. "We enter everything through the schedule," she says. "There’s not a duplication of entry."
Harrington says Able Home once used a software package that was geared more toward a Medicare agency. "It was very time-consuming," she explains. "I had a person probably spending about 20 hours a week just posting payments. The person would have to go into each shift an employee worked to post against it, as opposed to running an entire bill for a patient."
Switching to the CareKeeper system allowed Able Homes to save thousands of dollars a year by eliminating a position, she adds.
The software has loosened another agency’s time restraints. "I can do my billings and my payroll simultaneously. I no longer have to do my payroll on Monday and Tuesday and then billing on Wednesday and Thursday," explains Melanie Hinkle, accounts receivable and payroll manager for Vising Nurse Extra Care in Maumee, OH.
Now the agency submits its payroll on Tuesday. "Once it’s done, it’s done, and I’m free Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday to concentrate on older accounts or on calling insurance companies. Before I only had Friday or a couple hours on Friday to do that."
How it works
To set up the system, the agency inputs the patient and employee information. Then it enters the billing and pay rates.
Any care that gets scheduled then is validated against the proper payer source. Once those schedules have been validated, the system processes timecards, looks at everything the agency has scheduled, and matches it up with the appropriate bill and pay rate. This creates the final transactions the agency uses to create the invoicing and payroll.
"We call the product One-Step Integrated software," explains Jake Levy, vice president of CareKeeper Software Development in Atlanta. "One step will calculate the billing and the payroll directly from scheduling."
The software also allows an agency to input different payer sources for a client. For example, if an insurance company is one payer source, "You can put how much they are going to pay a percentage, a dollar amount, or numbers of visits based on whatever the benefit is. Then you put in another payer source for the additional percentage or dollar amount," Harrington explains.
"The system then asks if you want to print multiple invoices, and you say yes," she continues. "Then you schedule an employee. A screen will ask you which payer source, and you choose the right one." The process results in multiple invoices submitted to the payers.
Hinkle likes that the software can handle different payer sources and can print multiple invoices. "We have some clients who have both Medicaid and Medicaid waiver the first few hours may be billable to Medicaid waiver, the final hours to Medicaid. The care can be scheduled that way so the system spits out two different bills for the same person."
The system also keeps track of benefits. "An insurance company will often say that an insured has 40 visits per calendar year, with four hours constituting a visit," Harrington says. "I’m able to put that criteria into the system, and the system flags me when the benefits run out. I can even generate reports before that time so I’ll know to wean the patient off the service or advise him or her that the benefits are ending."
Reports generated, too
With her old system, Harrington could not figure the gross profit between each employee and each client unless she manually checked the payroll roster against the billing. Now she runs gross profitability reports weekly.
"We have timecard edits, timecard reports by client, client hour reports, worker hour reports, and timecard reports by both client and worker," she say. "What’s most beneficial for me to look at are the gross profit reports. They take about five minutes to run."
Hinkle says she uses the aging and profitability reports every month, too. "At the end of the month, we also print out all the timecards so we have a hard copy we’ll keep for a year and then shred it."
In addition to the reports, Harrington prints out the employee schedules. "It allows me on a weekly basis to see what we are doing and where our profits are," she explains. She also prints out a copy of the schedule to give to employees with their paychecks.
Hinkle uses the system to track employees’ licenses and certifications, as well as their health records. "We used to use paper to keep track of when employees were due for TB testing and annual reviews," she says. Now every two weeks, an employee gets a printout of what certifications will soon expire for employees.
"She can then write to these employees and say, Your TB test is about to expire, or you need to come in for your annual OSHA review.’"
The quick availability of a printout also helps in accreditation requirements. "Because CareKeeper can give us a list of all our staff’s RN and LPN licenses, we can send this to organizations like the Joint Commission [on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations] if they request it."
[Editor’s note: The CareKeeper system costs start at about $8,500 and can be upgraded for multiple users and locations. It is compatible with DOS, Windows, Windows 95, Windows NT, and Novell. For more information, call CareKeeper Software Development at (770) 392-1542.]
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