Overview: Rising Demand for In-Home Outpatient Services

COVID-19 has made it difficult to get patients to outpatient therapy clinics. Orthopedic surgeons are looking for home health agencies to provide outpatient therapy at patients’ homes. By providing Outpatient Therapy, agencies can keep the patient with the agency and continue the care.

As most Home Health Care agencies already provide Therapy Services as part of the Medicare Part A program, providing Outpatient Therapy Services at home under Medicare Part B or commercial payers will be a natural extension of services. Home Health Care agencies do not require any additional licenses to provide outpatient therapy services and the rapid rise in demand for in-home outpatient services provides additional revenue opportunities for agencies.

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Interestingly, most of the currently available software have limited features to handle or not be able to handle the billing requirements, and as such, in-home outpatient therapy services will pose unique challenges for scheduling, documentation, and billing.

A software platform designed to handle both home health care and outpatient services will provide a unique advantage to agencies.

Challenges

Home Health Care agencies providing both home health care and outpatient therapy services will face the following challenges finding the right software platform.

Using Home Health Care software for Outpatient Therapy

May not be able to keep multiple admissions under one patient
May not be able to provide the option for Therapy Plan of Care
May not have the flexibility to meet the documentation requirements for outpatient therapy
May not be able to capture multiple services provided during the care episode
May not be able to handle the billing for outpatient therapy services using the CMS-1500 format
May not have the options to manage therapy caps

Challenges of using multiple software

Often, Agencies may have to use two software solutions to handle home health care and outpatient therapy services. This creates a lot of challenges for caregivers and administrators.

Will require duplicate data entry in both systems
Schedule therapist in both software leading to errors in scheduling like duplicate schedules for patients and therapists
Agencies will not get a consolidated view of patient’s clinical and financial records
The increased cost of licensing will affect your agency’s financial performance
Training the same employees to use different software

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Advantages of Using a Unified System for All Home Care Services

The following are the advantages of a software platform designed to support home health care and outpatient therapy services.

Maintain multiple admissions under one patient record
Ability to manage home health and outpatient therapy plan of care
Provides a consolidated view of schedules for patient and therapist significantly reducing scheduling errors
Provides flexibility in documentation to meet the needs of home health care and outpatient therapy services
Ability to capture multiple services (modalities) provided during an outpatient therapy visit
Automatic translation of time to 15-minute units for each service
Will be able to bill in HCFA-1500 format for Medicare Part B or commercial payers
Maintain outpatient therapy fee schedules for payers
Reports to manage therapy caps
Provide a consolidated view of patients’ clinical and financial records
Meet authorization requirements for outpatient therapy services

Conclusion

CareVoyant offers an integrated software platform that supports both home health care and outpatient therapy services. Consolidated view of scheduling and clinical records will significantly improve the quality of care and patient satisfaction. CareVoyant can maintain a single patient and employee records for all services leading to significant operational efficiencies within the agency.

ABOUT CAREVOYANT

CareVoyant is a leading provider of cloud-based integrated enterprise-scale home health care software that can support all home-based services under ONE Software, ONE Patient, and ONE Employee, making it a Single System of Record. We support all home based services, including Home Care, Private Duty Nursing, Private Duty Non-Medical, Home and Community Based Services (HCBS), Home Health, Pediatric Home Care, and Outpatient Therapy at Home.

CareVoyant functions – Intake, Authorization Management, Scheduling, Clinical with Mobile options, eMAR/eTAR, Electronic Visit Verification (EVV), Billing/AR, Secure Messaging, Notification, Reporting, and Dashboards – streamline workflow, meet regulatory requirements, improve quality of care, optimize reimbursement, improve operational efficiency and agency bottom line.

For more information, please visit CareVoyant.com or call us at 1-888-463-6797.