As technology has advanced, people have become accustomed to immediate communication. They can send messages, update Facebook, and talk with their friends all in real-time. This level of accessibility has permeated all aspects of life, including home care. Gone are the days when an agency could use paper timesheets to track a caregiver’s schedule, and gone are the days when you could take a week to collect reports on what happened in the field. Advancing technology and new state regulations now require confirmation of shifts as they are being worked.
Fortunately, tools such as Rosemark Telephony allow you to implement efficient processes that seamlessly allow for data collection from the field. Here are 3 major benefits of implementing telephony software into your operations processes.
Open communication between the office and the field
- Broadcast messages
- Task reporting
- Information gathering – reimbursables
Real-time alerts with telephony software
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No Shows
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Issues from the field
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Record the exact date and time of services
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Confirm the caregiver is where she’s scheduled to be
Automatic verification of shifts
- No more paper timesheets
- No manual monitoring every shift
- Alerts to issues in the field
Open Communication between the Office and the Field
Being able to monitor your staff in real-time so you can confirm your shifts are covered is a great first step in home care management, but telephony allows for so much more. Through the use of an integrated telephony system, you can keep the line of communication open between the office and the field. You are able to personalized messages about clients to your caregivers, or you could send broadcast messages to your entire caregiving staff. Need to remind some caregivers about a client’s doctor appointment? Would you like to alert a caregiver that one of her credentials is expiring and she needs to get it updated? Your caregivers will hear these messages when they log in for their shifts, and they have the option of leaving you a voice mail during logout if they have any important information to relay to you.
In addition to the messaging features of telephony, your caregivers can also do real-time task reporting. She can enter the tasks she worked during her shift during log-out, and that information feeds back into your home care management system in real-time, so you can confirm and verify what was worked. You no longer have to wait for the caregiver to turn in a timesheet at the end of the week to verify your clients are receiving the care they are supposed to, you can now see what is being worked each day, confirming your clients are well taken care of.
Your caregivers can also enter in any reimbursables from the shift. If they need to be reimbursed for driving the client around, or if they had to go out of pocket and buy the client some groceries, they can record that info over the phone, and it will be added to the shift and included in the payroll. All of this information comes into the system in real-time, allowing you access to accurate real-time reports so you can ensure things are running smoothly.
Real-Time Management of Shifts
With telephony, you can keep a finger on the pulse of what’s happening in the field, all in real-time. When the caregiver logs in to her scheduled shift, a telephony event will be created in your scheduling system with the exact date, time, and phone number of the call, so you can confirm your caregiver is where she is scheduled to be.
If there is any issue with your shifts, for example, if your caregivers aren’t logging in, you will be alerted to those issues through the use of a no-show warning. You will be sent an email and a text alerting you that your caregiver didn’t log in for her scheduled shift, with the phone number of your caregiver and the client so you can reach out to discover what is going on. Once a login has been confirmed, you will receive another email and text notifying you that the shift is now covered. This way you can stay on top of your staff and ensure your clients are receiving the care they deserve.
Automatically Verify Shifts are Worked with Telephony Software
Another main benefit of telephony is that it ties directly into billing and payroll. With a timesheet system, you hand out the schedules to the caregivers and then wait a week or two for them to turn in what they worked. Once those timesheets are in, you have to manually check that what was reported worked was actually what was scheduled, and then make any manual edits to the schedule where there are discrepancies. This is a very tedious and labor-intensive process. With telephony, your shifts are being confirmed as worked in real-time. Your scheduling system recognizes what shifts are worked as the phone calls come in, and the system will automatically verify the shift as complete in real-time. You no longer need to review every shift to confirm it was actually worked, telephony will do that for you, and you’ll be alerted to any issues as they pop up. Once the shifts have been verified as being worked, they are ready for billing and payroll. This removes a lot of the manual effort of managing an agency and saves you time.
There are many benefits to implementing a telephony system in your operations. With the combination of real-time management of shifts, open communication between the office and the field, and an automated verification process, you will have an integrated, efficient system to help manage your agency.
If your home care agency is not currently using telephony software or has questions about how to implement telephony or EVV, start a conversation today with your friends at Rosemark.