Hospice amy

It has been very helpful keeping g my visits and orders scheduled and timely. I can find all patient information quickly from other client providers within our hospice team.

Pros

I can quickly and easily find clients demographic information, medical information, orders, plans, billing, etc

Cons

There are many options and paths you can take so you have to take some time familiarizing yourself with the product in order to navigate quickly.

HCHB Review

Since day one from the trainers to customer support, it has been a positive experience. We feel supported when needed and really appreciate the customer support re structure that is going on at this time.

Pros

HCHB is great in that it puts the workflow to the forefront so it must be addressed. No missing work items or trying to remember if you did a process. It reminds you or actually has hard stops to keep you from moving foward without the required information.

Cons

some of the stops require HCHB to intervene. While I at times understand I think it should be a the agencies discretion. My number one con is the when a patient changes insurance and a new episode must be opened and retro episode information added.

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.

Review of Bereavement Tracking panel

This software has been essential to keeping track of when to contact family members and other loved ones.

Pros

I like that the software keeps track of when to send letters and the one to make phone calls

Cons

What using the calendar function to plot phone calls it would be nice if the calendar showed national and religious holidays to prevent scheduling on those days.

Top billing software but has some downfalls....

Pros

They have been great to add programs to the software so that we can keep everything in house. We have multiple lines of business and in that respect they are very accommodating. We have been with them for years so most of our staff is familiar with the software and how it operates.

Cons

It can become super costly. They charge enormous amounts for each add-on you purchase. Also, customer service has always and still is very slow to respond at times. There are times we will wait 2-3 days for a response to what seems like a simple fix. Also not fond of a lot of the updates they do (which is often) They seem to change the look and feel of the site far too much.