Excellent

I love this software...I've used brightree/Matrixcare also in another position and HC/HB is sooo much better! Easy to navigate. All your info is readily available from main screen. Adaptable by admin. Cant praise it enough!

Pros

Ease if use/user friendly. Information readily available and easy to find. Well organized

Cons

Some issues with glitches, like not syncing sometimes. Supply list can be confusing. Confusing to update/change plan of care. Difficulty updating aide care plan (I can change it but it doesnt "stick") but i probably just need to read up on how to do that correctly. So much good about everything else, these are minor.

Good for Hospice and Home Health services, easy to use

It works well for me personally, however I would appreciate an app and alerts when I have work to do on it.

Pros

It is quite simple and easy to use for Home Health agencies and Hospices. I approve orders in it and it takes me literally 3 clicks and steps. It took me very little time to learn how to use it. I have heard others have had the same experience. I would imaging training costs are low. Tracking referrals is very easy.

Cons

It does not interface with Epic well which is unfortunate. Epic is the most commonly used software by hospitals and large health system. It is not convenient for nurses who have to chart in both softwares. I wish this software would alert me when orders come to my in-basket to sign. I have to remember to log in every week. Unlike other software such as Epic, they do not have a phone app. Epic app alerts you when you have a message. To compete, HH should create an app, too. At times too many questions have to be answered and repeating information has to be typed in by hand, which wastes time and takes away from time spent with the patient.

The Ripple Effect

In my opinion, as the biller I saw that this software caused this company to lose a lot of money.

Pros

Having used a handful of different software programs in the healthcare field I found using this particular one taught me to appreciate the others in a big way.

Cons

This software is marketed as a “workflow” driven program that is supposed to seamlessly keep users on top of tasks to insure the ball keeps rolling without interruption. The workflow is from referral stage (accepted or not), to insurance verification (which should be done first), to scheduling start of care visit and so on. Each step has several “workflow” sections that need to be cleared. These workflow items can only be cleared from the “workflow” section of the software. In other words, it cannot be cleared simply by doing the task from other sections of the software or the patients chart. Insurance authorizations are tricky. A SOC visit cannot be scheduled without an authorization being entered, even for Medicare payors which do not require an auth. Authorizations require a "bypass" to be entered first which is only a partial auth allowing a scheduler to only plot a few visits, explained to employees that it forces auths be requested and followed up on so that the remaining visits can be scheduled. However this wasn't the case, as a turnover in employees occurred repeatedly, orders weren’t being approved in a timely manner so new employees were told to add to these bypasses to be able to schedule further visits. If bypass extensions weren’t entered, visits were not scheduled in a timely manner and ordered frequency was not honored and in the end MANY missed visits had to be entered, which happened frequently. Auth requests fell behind as well because orders hadn’t been approved and not all Ins companies allow back dating of auth requests which costed this company dearly. Also the auth workflow has many sections, Enter initial auth bypass, Request initial auth, Follow up on auth request, Enter auth upon approval, all for each patient and each auth..so much reworking on the same subject, a huge time waster and messy. Each workflow item requires coordination note to be entered (more to weed through when searching notes). To explain untimely verbal order approval, they understandably need to be approved as do many other things, usually by the Director of Nursing. As the DON rules many facets of this kind of business, her “workflow” is overwhelming, as is every assigned workflow item with this program, hence the turnover. Every employee has an overwhelming workflow that drives them to seek other employment. I saw 3 DON’s come and go in the few short months I was with this company. This in my opinion is what causes a ripple effect. If only one user in this “workflow” process cannot keep up it will and does cause every step thereafter to be off because the task does not move to the next step until the one before is complete. A couple of other things outside the workflow that cause issues: There is no visit management for looking into if visits were completed or not in the patient chart. Users have to exit the chart to go to the scheduling console that is many clicks and searches to get to. Actual visit notes are found in coordination notes that are mixed with all certification periods for that patient and there is no indication of what kind of visit it is, a follow up or oasis etc. This information is only available in the scheduler. All documents that are scanned into a patients chart are mixed as well with all cert periods so in turn users spend too much time weeding out, another big time waster. Also only one user can be in a patient chart at a time, very odd.

Hospice charting

I hadn’t minimal training in the program but I did have some cheat sheets that really helped me stumble through.

Pros

I like how easy the program is to navigate and chart in. I also really like the workflow set up and idg set up.

Cons

It’s hard to see a full picture of care with the way the pages are set up. In a different program I was able to see all notes per discipline.

Field RN user

Poor so far

Pros

Can sync quickly. That's it. Being able to use small device is kinda of nice .

Cons

From field staff point of view hchb is very poor program. Pathways do not reflect care provided. Waiting around for office staff to change codes, add visits, process work que is extremely slow. Buddy codes are a mess for large organization. We end up with visits on one nurse and buddy codes on another. Makes no sense that buddy codes can be moved separate from a visit.There are repetitive questions in some areas of assessment that are not needed nor appropriate. I spend more time "looking" at my phone during a visit than I do the patient. No ability to self schedule my case load.Writing exceptions all the time as to why i wasn't in home 30 minutes, when I actually was is annoying now. The system we have on scanning documents that MD have written by hand is not legible half the time so make figuring orders a concern. I'd rather go back to epic.