Going Beyond Simple Proof of Visit
Home care, hospice and community care agencies are moving quickly to adopt electronic visit verification (EVV) solutions. In many cases, their rush stems from a reactive stance as a growing number of states have passed laws mandating the use of EVV. The Federal government has also proposed legislation that would require the use of EVV for personal care services provided under Medicaid.
In short, if an agency doesn’t use EVV, payments may be delayed or even reduced. With already-tight operating margins, home care agencies can’t afford any delays in reimbursements.
While that is certainly a good reason to invest in EVV technology, it’s just one among many. Frankly, one could argue that many other reasons should come before it. After all, receiving payment for care provided is the last step in the care-delivery cycle.
So how else can this technology provide added value to your agency?
An Industry in Transition
Beyond compliance with proof-of-visit regulations, agencies face many challenges that EVV technology can help to address. We call those challenges the “Four Cs” – compliance, cost, care and communication.
As the care-delivery model moves from the traditional institutional setting to become in-home and community-based, the entire business model shifts. Now, home health care agencies provide care through a wide-spread, decentralized, mobile workforce. These organizations must be able to optimize delivery, increase client satisfaction, and communicate rapidly and securely.
If your agency can’t meet these requirements, it will be hard-pressed to contain costs, receive client referrals, renew contracts and win new business. Similarly, if you choose an EVV solution based primarily on its ability to check a box “we were here,” it will do little more to improve your organization’s bottom line than sticking with an outdated paper-based approach.
Choices, Choices
Any technology investment involves a series of choices:
- What are the current gaps?
- How can you go about plugging those gaps?
- What efficiencies can be gained?
- What will be the impact to the customer base? To the employees?
- What’s the ROI?
When evaluating EVV technologies, there are five main options. This white paper provides an overview of them all. It covers not only the ability to verify visits, but considers other relevant factors which can help your agency realize value in the office and at the point-of-care. Read it to learn how a strong electronic visit verification solution can help you:
- Reduce the number of missed visits and visits that start late, end early or run long,
- Improve the quality of care delivered and supporting improved outcomes by making it easy for caregivers to report on and fully document the activities performed during a visit, providing real-time alerts for changes in condition, and providing the full care team with role-based secure access to relevant care and services information,
- Reduce mileage and administrative costs,
- Streamline communications between the office and caregivers, across the entire care team, and even with families and guardians,
- Enable operating efficiencies so an agency can increase productivity in terms of visits per caregiver census with current staff, and
- Improve compliance and reporting capabilities, including richer analytics to bolster decision-making.
Armed with this knowledge, you will be better prepared to go beyond simple proof of visit to optimize health care and services delivery.
