5 Ways to Keep Documentation Training Fun
Kenyon HomeCare Consulting • March 16, 2021
Unless you are coding at full accuracy and specificity, you are leaving money on the table. However, high reimbursements and steady cash flow are as much dependent on documentation skills as on coding skills.
After all, without being fed needed information, coders cannot reach maximum productivity levels. The answer is advanced education for nurses and other homecare clinicians. But often education on documentation, quite frankly, makes the eyelids heavy. Can’t documentation training be fun instead of tedious and sometimes really boring? Well, you can’t change the material, but here are 5 ways to get creative and make homecare documentation training enjoyable instead of depressing:
1. Establish Training-related Incentives
There are already negative consequences for those who skip training, fall asleep during training, or fail to implement “class lessons.” Pairing that up with some positive incentives is a good thing. Consider giving rewards to those who attend all training during a given month or year; having practice time and test at each session’s end (and the best score wins a prize); or even offering bonuses or paid time off for those who both attend the training and excel at documentation as a result.
2. Make the Sessions Fun With Theme Days
Throwing something completely unrelated to documentation into the mix can make it more fun. Attendees dress up for theme days, all wearing a matching color, donning unusual hats or dressed in jeans and a favorite movie t-shirt. Allow training to get them out of a uniform for the day. Those that dress can win things like gas cards. What homecare clinician doesn’t like a free gas card these days? Or you could issue training-day T shirts with themes like “Document Better” or “Love Your Coder” written on them.
3. Bring in a Fresh Face
No matter how good a teacher you are, sooner or later, your students will grow too accustomed to your voice, body language, and teaching style. Having the same teacher for OASIS, diabetes documentation, coding issues, or what have you is monotonous. Monotony is no virtue, so bring guest speakers once in a while to shake things up. It will expand your staff’s knowledge base and keep them awake at the same time.
4. Use Diverse Media Aids
The presence of a large chart, graph, or diagram at the front of the room can draw attention. And using short video clips can keep things interesting and often light-hearted if you throw in clips of something relative in pop culture at the time. A diversity of media technologies and visual aids helps with the attention span of clinicians.
5. Monitor Success and Connect it to Training
When all said and done, the agency needs to measure the ongoing efficacy and improvement in documentation post training. This will also guide who and what the focus should be for ongoing training sessions. Direct correlations should be drawn between such improvements since the last training session. Sharing with attendees how past training has been effective can make ongoing training easier. Make sure to connect the dots for staff and acknowledge those who made strides in improvement. Your agency can decide the best way to to so.
Conclusion
Documentation training is not optional, but it is crucial to homecare success and reimbursement. But keeping it “as fun as possible” for everyone can only improve results. To learn more about training opportunities provided by Kenyon HomeCare Consulting and how they can benefit both individuals on your staff and your whole organization, call us today at 206-721-5091 or fill out our online contact form
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Today, this article will look at little different than out typical articles. We all know the costs of losing employees and trying to hire and train new ones. It is exhausting and expensive. So, we think about our wages and benefit packages all the time. What can we do differently that makes people stay? We can’t change the job and we don’t want to keep people that don’t like the work itself. So, how do we acknowledge employees in a way that is valuable to them and that our businesses can afford to do? 5 Things To Consider About Employee Recognition At Your Christmas Party: 1. Years of Service: These can be based on milestone work anniversaries (5, 10, 15 yrs, etc.). If a person has been at your agency 11 years, you pull them up and acknowledge them in the group of employees who have been there at least 10 years up until the time they hit the 15 years landmark. This way longevity is recognized yearly. 2. Special Employee awards: Now, this may be difficult if your staff is very small, but acknowledge the employee who has gone the extra mile in the job they do. Tell the story. The employee needs to know when the employer is proud of the work that has been done. Consider a plaque or certificate. Don’t minimize the value of the employee having them to display. 3. Acknowledge all employees in the mix: Because we are a clinical industry, the administrative staff is often overlooked on day-to-day operations. Ultimately, don’t miss the chance to acknowledge the employee who was able to catch billing errors or collect on a large account. Staff doesn’t like to hear about money, but those types of collections keep Christmas bonuses in place! So, make sure the other staff knows the accomplishments of the finance department or the office manager that every caller loves to speak to. Don't ever forget the IT staff that is on call more than any clinical person in your agency! 4. Letters from the administration: Add a personal note to your staff either collectively or individually depending on the size of your agency. If you are larger, there are employees you don’t often see or get to talk to on a regular basis, so take the time so send a note with that Christmas bonus. 5. Consider the Christmas bonus: Listen, some of you can afford to do substantial monetary bonuses and that is fantastic. However, if you are not in that position, consider something in its place. Maybe small gas cards go with the letter from administration. With the cost of groceries, consider something that helps with the costs of daily living for employees. Big box gift cards in your area will always be used. You may do a lot of these things on a yearly basis to employees. All this being said, it doesn’t mean there aren’t reasons for acknowledgement throughout the year. However, your annual Christmas party is a good way to do it collectively. Between your annual party, write the individual cards to employees when you hear a patient interaction worthy of praise. Or, maybe you buy a gas card for the employee who has picked up extra shifts and always shows up on time. Ultimately, employees will feel valued. You will not regret the time, effort, and energy put into these efforts. Merry Christmas! If you want help with recruitment and retention strategies for your agency, please call Kenyon Homecare Consulting at 206-721-5091 or contact us online today.