Running a homecare agency is demanding work, but you don’t have to let it overwhelm you! It’s time to confront the challenges of rising caregiver salaries, turnover woes, and the relentless rise of inflation head-on.
Here we will reveal the formula for running a financially efficient homecare agency without compromising on the quality of service. We’ll explore proven strategies that can empower your organization to stand out against the competition and share how leveraging innovative tools will put your agency on a path towards optimal cost management.
In the quest for cost-effectiveness, data is your best friend. Leveraging data and utilizing business intelligence dashboards will provide valuable insights into your agency’s operations, identify areas of inefficiency, and help you implement new strategies that will save your agency time and money. These reports offer a treasure trove of information that can help you make data-driven decisions and optimize your operations.
Scenario A: You’ve serviced a client but when you go to submit your claim, you discover that their authorization was out of date. Now you won’t be able to get paid for work your business completed.
Scenario B: Your agency uses Business Intelligence reports to regularly check the status of your patient authorizations. The dashboard allows you to easily filter for expiring authorizations and you catch one that is about to expire. You are able to get the authorization updated before it becomes a problem. With HHAeXchange, we get streamlined reports that give us real insight into our business and help us take action on what will make the biggest impact.
“With HHAeXchange, we get streamlined reports that give us real insight into our business and help us take action on what will make the biggest impact.” -James Rolla, Senior Vice President of Personal Care at VNS Health
“With HHAeXchange, we get streamlined reports that give us real insight into our business and help us take action on what will make the biggest impact.”
A client is seeking your services, but you have no caregiver available to fill the shift, and now you’re forced to either turn down the client or pay another caregiver overtime. If you’ve experienced this situation before, you aren’t alone. According to the HCP Benchmarking Report, 82% of homecare agencies had to turn down clients in 2022 because they didn’t have caregivers available. That’s money left on the table.
Now, the larger issue here is related to the caregiver shortage, but what many agencies don’t consider is that they may be able to mitigate some of the strain on their workforce by optimizing their caregivers’ schedules. Using a homecare scheduling software that has patient caregiver matching capability will allow you to quickly pair caregivers and patients based on availability, location, needs, and preferences. With a software like HHAeXchange, you’ll get alerts about potential shift overlaps, overtime pay, vacation conflicts, and caregiver non-compliance or missed training. Additionally, you can broadcast open shifts to all your available caregivers. You may not be able to control the caregiver shortage, but there are things you can do to make your current caregiver schedules more efficient.
You specialize in providing homecare services; you aren’t an accountant, tax expert, or HR guru. As a functioning agency, you need someone performing each of these duties in order to keep your business operational, but that doesn’t mean you have to hire full-time staff to make that happen. For many homecare agencies, it is worth it to outsource these functions. This can reduce staffing costs and allow your agency to focus on its core objective— caring for your clients. There are many great resources out there, like ADP for HR and payroll.
No one wants their client to be admitted to the hospital. Keeping clients happy and healthy in their homes where you can provide them with services is the best-case scenario for everyone.
There are many strategies homecare agencies can employ to help this become a reality. Your first line of defense here will be your caregivers. They have direct access to your clients’ homes and are instrumental in keeping them healthy. Emphasize to your caregivers the importance of promoting healthy behaviors with their clients and train them properly on how to reduce the likelihood of complications. And most importantly, give them the tools to report anything concerning they observe in the home. With a mobile app they can share serious client symptoms or dangerous living conditions. This can help prevent costly hospitalizations or emergency room visits.
Another newer method for reducing readmissions is through remote patient monitoring (RPM). You can implement RPM devices that keep the client’s care team updated on any concerning health data and allow them to intervene before it requires hospitalization.
An efficient homecare billing and claims process is essential for cost-effectiveness. Business Intelligence reports provide comprehensive data on billing and claims activities. By analyzing this data, you can identify potential issues or bottlenecks in your billing process that may be leading to delayed or denied claims.
Identifying and addressing these issues allows you to streamline your billing operations, reduce claim rejections, and improve cash flow. This, in turn, contributes to overall cost-effectiveness by minimizing the administrative burden and maximizing revenue.
Non-compliance can result in costly penalties for homecare agencies. Use a Business Intelligence reporting tool to help you monitor compliance by providing visibility into key metrics, such as visit verification data, caregiver compliance, and authorizations.
By regularly reviewing these reports, you can identify areas of non-compliance and take proactive measures to address them. This includes educating staff, implementing training programs, and establishing processes to ensure adherence to regulatory requirements. Avoiding compliance penalties not only saves money but also protects your agency’s reputation.
Time-consuming administrative tasks can eat into your resources. Consider a homecare management software that can automate time-consuming duties like scheduling, billing, and payroll. Having the ability to manage your day-to-day responsibilities by logging into one platform will give you hours (sometimes days) of your time back, and prevent costly errors caused by doing work manually or housing data in multiple locations.
Becoming cost-cutting champions while upholding exceptional care standards is how homecare agencies succeed in today’s market. And the best part is that it isn’t a pipe dream. With the right tools, and homecare business savvy, you can run a cost-effective homecare business that still puts your clients first.
To learn how HHAeXchange can help your homecare agency streamline your processes and maintain excellent customer care, request a demo.
See More Blog