February 9

Billing & Pre-billing

February 23

Referral Management

March 9

Telephony & Audit Calls

February 13-15, 2011

Ritz-Carlton Laguna Niguel, CA

Afterthoughts: NAHC 6th Annual Private Duty Home Care Leadership Summit & Exposition

Having arrived back home in NY last week from NAHC's private duty conference in Long Beach, CA, it's striking to note the differences in home care between lower NY (our home base) and the rest of the country. Generally, agencies outside of NY focus substantially more on marketing and considerably less on compliance. Since the mix often includes a weighting less reliant on Medicaid, margins are typically higher. Offsetting that, they experience a lower average volume of standard hours per case.

We showcased our newest product, ConeXus, which was received with great interest (see the piece below for more information on this unified text/voice/email tool geared to streamline communications with field staff). There were approximately 300 people in attendance covering most states, and we will be again showcasing ConeXus at the upcoming NPDA annual conference in Las Vegas this March.

Innovations: ConeXus

ConeXus is the newest offering from our prism of services. Designed to communicate with your employees for you, ConeXus instantly reaches your targeted staff wherever they are, via text, phone or e-mail.

With only a few clicks, you can notify a selected group about replacements / call-offs, job availability, weekly schedules, emergencies, upcoming in-services, required medicals follow-up and more.
 

Now you can...

• Send a message to one employee, a select group or your entire staff - in one simple step
• Utilize the following options based on employee preference:
  voice message or text-to-speech, a text message, or an html/plain text e-mail with or without an attachment
• Save all your communications, and view reports and results at a glance
• Rely on user-friendly message templates
• Schedule a message, or send it immediately
• Increase efficiency and better manage your workflow
• Interface with your current scheduling system
  (applicable to most industry software)

To learn more about this exciting new capability, visit us at www.conexushomecare.com

Expert's Corner: Karen Murphy

Personnel File Compliance - The "Easy A"
Why can't agencies get the job done?

By Karen Murphy, R.N.,C. MHS President, Adept Resources

Surveys and audits are an intrinsic part of agency operations. Agencies perform many day-to-day actions to ensure that they meet regulatory compliance criteria, accreditation standards, contractor demands and other such requirements. While there are many disconcerting details in the successful delivery of services each day, personnel file compliance should be the "easy A" in all reviews. Personnel file requirements are relatively clear cut, repetitious and necessary. So why do agencies fail to meet personnel requirements upon review? If one were to conduct a root cause analysis of Statements of Deficiency for personnel regulatory requirements, then the analysis will most frequently produce one of the following conclusions. The agency does not:

1. Establish and maintain a complete set of personnel file requirements
2. Consistently discover, request and obtain needed information on an ongoing basis
3. Update the personnel file data base with ongoing information
4. Produce regular reports and requests for personnel requirements
5. Suspend assignment of personnel who do not meet personnel requirements
6. Perform a complete personnel file review upon staff members' return from leaves

In the world of regulatory compliance, seeing to personnel file needs is relatively simple, though repetitious. The following work processes must be integrated into daily operations to build the foundation for consistent success in achieving compliance with personnel requirements:

• Consistent discovery of personnel file needs
• Systematic requests for information
• Tracking responses from requests for information
• Documenting receipt of information and filing information in appropriate files for rapid retrieval
• Making multiple requests for remaining needs
• Reporting non-compliance
• Replacing non compliant staff members promptly
• Counseling staff members regarding personnel file needs, resources to complete requirements and statement of performance expectations
• Evaluate staff members' performance in completing personnel file requirements promptly and effectively at each personnel evaluation

Does your agency policy require that each of these work processes be completed consistently? Who is responsible for each work process? How frequently is each work process completed? Is the work process assigned in the job description? How is compliance of personnel files monitored? What actions are required upon discovery of non compliance? Are such actions completed as required by agency policy?

A quick look into each of these required actions can help your agency achieve and maintain "The Easy "A"" on your next personnel file review!

HHA eXchange Partners with Extended Home Care

We are delighted to announce our recently formed partnership with Extended Home Care a NY Certified Home Health Care Agency, the newest a member on our flagship vendor management platform. Extended Home Care specializes in home care services to patients with mental retardation and developmental disabilities (MR/DD) and their families. The revolutionary eXchange Suite will better equip them to deliver their unique level of comprehensive, patient-centered care to all New Yorkers in need. Roll-out is anticipated within the first half of 2011.