What Are The Top 5 Things That Come To Mind When You Consider Agency Operations?
August 7, 2021
Making Adjustments: What Comes First?
Often times, the biggest mistake in operations is just immediately making cuts in staffing to decrease operating costs. More often than not, the problem lies in how you operate. It isn't necessarily how many people you have running the ship. Let's look at our top 5 things to consider when it comes to operations:
- Admission Process: Take yourself through process step-by-step from the time your agency first receives the call to when you are ready to submit the RAP. How many employees are involved in the process? How many "hands" does the referral go through before the completion of the admission? Often times, the process includes a back-and forth between multiple employees that ultimately slows down the process. Who does insurance verification and authorization? Is it multiple different employees? What happens if someone is behind working through your admission process? Who picks up the slack?
- Nursing: What is your average time for nurses to complete visits or admissions/ recerts? We all know staff that are slower in completing work, but what is your average for nursing staff? If you employ your own therapists, then you should know this as well. How does this look compared to the rest of your state? Often, it is not about efficiency on the part of the nurses or clinical staff. Many times the issue lies in the process. We see a lot of nursing staff managing things that can be completed by office staff. Therefore, agencies take their most expensive employees to complete administrative tasks. Clinicians can also be hindered when it comes to the EMR and this is our #3 consideration.
- Electronic Medical Record: Now, this does not mean we are suggesting a change in your EMR. We are telling you to take a hard look at your documentation. There is still a ton of double and triple documenting. When software is first adopted by an agency, often times everything is activated by the agency. Therefore, clinical staff have to jump through every hoop and address so many items that may not even be relevant that patient's situation. This is a ton of wasted time and money for your agency. Somewhere in the mix of improving accessibility of information to provide the patient can get lost in a sea of data.
- ICD 10 Coding: If you aren't employing certified coders or using them as your coding solution, then stop. You are missing out on accuracy and most likely the right amount of reimbursement. You also need to verify ongoing competence with your coders. This means making sure all the information is present in the charts to justify the codes being used on the 485. An objective look into the accuracy of your coding is always a good check-and-balance.
- Billing: Again, consider how up-to-date you are on billing and collection of receivables. Let's face it, many agencies struggle with outstandings and collecting the money owed by others. Employees get tired of the run around from insurance agencies and patients with unpaid bills. We see many of these get written off because of lack of routine and consistent follow-up to get dollars owed your agency. These employees cost you a lot of money. Consider if the person you have in charge of receivables is the best person to collect for you. What is the process of how and when employees work on these? Who checks to see if it is being adhered to by staff?
Let Kenyon Homecare Consulting Help You With Operations:
At Kenyon Homecare Consulting
, we help agencies put together the pieces of operations management. It is often the eye of someone objective looking at your agency that can make the difference of finishing in the red or the black. From clinical to finance and marketing, we can help you find a solution to make a difference. Call us today at 206-721-5091 or contact us online
to see how we can help you turn things around in your agency.
Results Based Consulting
Did you find value in this blog post? Imagine what we can do for your home care or hospice agency. Fill out the form below to see how we're leading the industry with innovation, affordability, and experience.
Contact Us
Managing compliance in the home care, home health, and hospice world is a challenge. Let's look at what it takes. It is necessary to be methodical and intentional.
Significant reductions is federal Medicaid funding has a huge impact to our nation's healthcare system to the tune of $911 billion over 10 years.
Somewhere in the mix of trying to improve patient care, the patients can get lost. The drive to to move to true patient centered care.
Quality of care issues present a range of challenges related to providing effective and safe care in a patient's home.
Infection Control breaches remain a problem in the home care industry. These are preventable errors for your surveys and in everyday practice.
Recruiting home care staff is challenging and costly, losing and replacing staff is worse. You also must consider lost opportunity costs.
One of the biggest challenges for home care and home health is the recruitment of staff to provide care. The high cost remains an issue for recruitment strategies.
There has been a growing issue with the supply of nurses and home care aides. This is particularly true for home care agencies. With the increased competition from hospitals, skilled nursing homes, Medicare home health and hospices for these workers, it has become increasingly difficult to recruit and hire.
HOPE Question and Answer Repository
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.