Electronic Physical Therapy Documentation for Flow Sheets
Flow sheets are one form of documentation used by physical therapists in the daily notes for patient care. They provide a format for documenting exercises, repetitions and weights.
In Chart Links’ Rehabilitation Software, flow sheets provide electronic management of clinical data entry and review of patient progress over time. Flow sheets can accommodate multi-disciplinary documentation requirements and may be linked to progress notes and charges.
Visit the Chart Links website for more information about electronic physical therapy documentation.
HealthPoint Rehab Chooses Chart Links as its EHR
HealthPoint Rehab (www.healthpointplaza.com), a service of Southeast Missouri Hospital, comprises two outpatient rehabilitation centers located in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, Missouri. Combined, the centers employ 25 therapists engaged in physical, occupational, speech and specialty therapies including orthopedic, neurological, myofascial and lymphedema. The two centers handle about 33,600 total patient visits annually.
Realizing the inexorable trend toward electronic medical records, the HealthPoint management team decided to abandon its paper-based system and make a comprehensive search for an advanced electronic solution.
“We knew the need for EMR was coming,” said Andrea Marchi, PT, MBA, CSCS, HealthPoint rehab manager. “We wanted to get ahead of the curve and have plenty of time to make the right decision. That’s when we began a search that led us to Chart Links – a choice we couldn’t be happier with.”
Chart Links offered a product customizable to HealthPoint’s suite of multi-discipline therapeutic services. “We needed a system that could effectively address and document our many different specialty areas and Chart Links was the only one that had this capability.”
A Compliant Documentation Process
Chart Links Rehabilitation Software is driven by major accreditation, professional, information technology and security standards. It supports compliance with JCAHO, CARF, AOTA, APTA, HIPAA and other rehabilitation professional standards. The system’s documentation helps ensure compliance with Medicare Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) Edits, modifiers and time tracking.
Marchi feels more at ease with proper documentation compliance. “Our compliance is virtually guaranteed because, in a progress note or evaluation section, Chart Links prompts for JCAHO and Medicare documentation in a way that you cannot miss or ignore.”
Unlike paper forms unable to force standards compliance, Chart Links’ electronic forms do not accept signatures without fulfillment of all required standards.
Better Business Decisions with Analytics
Chart Links Analytics allows managers to make informed business decisions through a simple-to-use ad hoc analysis interface that can analyze practice trends, develop universal metrics, measure long-term changes, and gather operational decision-support data.
“What could be a monumental task, taking weeks to accomplish by having to manually track and assemble mountains of data now is as simple as jumping into the system, defining your parameters and – click – up comes the data,” said Marchi. “It’s easy to read and understand. You don’t need any assistance from IT to make this happen. Chart Links Analytics is simply awesome.”
HealthPoint uses Chart Links Analytics for generating statistics for its annual report and as a basis to make good business decisions. Analytics allows HealthPoint, for example, to analyze visits (by location, by therapist, by time-period, etc.), dissect referrals, or scrutinize cancellation rates. “Chart Links Analytics helps us to stay ahead of the game, so we can make better decisions and not be reactive to what has already happened,” observed Marchi.
Routine Tasks Greatly Improved
Marchi also cites the user-friendly Chart Links scheduler as a key benefit. She notes that you can see all you need to see on one screen. Users can sort information by discipline or selected providers, or take a patient and click and copy for 15 visits instead of making 15 individual appointments. “The front desk has nothing but good things to say about the Chart Links scheduler,” remarked Marchi.
Chart Links Customer Service as Outstanding as its Technology
HealthPoint has found that the Chart Links solution extends into exceptional customer service. “The customer service we have received has been fantastic,” said Marchi. “There was no sense that, once we went live, ‘you’re on your own.’ Chart Links doesn’t operate that way. They don’t put limits on customer service. We feel we can call on them anytime. Chart Links consistently delivers on all counts.”
APTA Submits Comments on EHR Testing and Certification Process
The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) recently submitted comments to the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in response to a proposed rule that would establish a temporary program for the testing and certification of electronic health records (EHRs).
The proposed rule, released March 10, is the third and final step in the rulemaking process to establish the incentive payments program for the meaningful use of certified EHRs. While physical therapists are not currently eligible for incentive payments under the program, APTA’s comments were designed to ensure that the testing and certification processes established under the temporary program meet the needs of health care providers including physical therapists.
Comments on the permanent testing and certification programs are due May 10.
Source: APTA.org
Chart Links Participates in PT Products’ Software Roundtable
Jim Hammer, COO of Chart Links, was invited again this year to participate in a software roundtable interview with editor of Physcal Therapy Products, Arati Murti. Here are a few of the questions and answers that were exchanged in the January 2010 edition:
PT Products: Budgets are tight in today’s economy; what are practice managers focused on in terms of software features/needs?
Jim Hammer: They’re focused on what really counts-features that provide a tangible return on investment: Compliance in coding and charting that will reduce payor denials and audits; reduce lost charges and increase revenue opportunity; Denial and revenue cycle management that will increase cash flow; and Automation of manual workflow processes (like referral and plan of care management) to create operational efficiencies and reduce labor costs.
PT Products: In what features/business areas can managers save money/time? (What software features can be used differently or combined?)
Jim Hammer: By using software to reduce the phone calls and faxing associated with physician approval of therapist-generated plans of care, both time and money can be saved. At one of our hospital-affiliated outpatient centers, both therapists and physicians were documenting electronically. However, the authorization process between the two systems required manual intervention with printing, sorting, bundling, faxing, scanning, and data input. Chart Links created a real-time interface to eliminate the manual paper chase in the workflow. By eliminating backlogs of unauthorized paper plans of care, the client has delivered quicker continuity of care (time) and has reduced billing delays (money).
PT Products: What’s the most challenging business “bottleneck” that you hear of from your customers, and how can software help avoid that situation?
Jim Hammer: Plan of care authorization management is still a manually burdensome and paper-laden process in our industry. Time is lost making phone calls, printing, signing, faxing, and waiting for paper forms to be authorized. With a Health Level 7 (HL7) interface and workflow automation, this process can be transformed into the electronic age to avoid the unnecessary paper chase.
PT Products: In terms of software needs in 2010, what are the important differences in concerns for hospitals/facilities versus private practices?
Jim Hammer: Data exchange. Hospital-affiliated outpatient rehabilitation centers must focus on how they will connect to the hospital information system and to local area referring physicians via Health Level 7 (HL7) interfaces. Standards and definition around health information exchange will be critical in the coming year.
Implementation Services for Electronic Therapy Documentation
When it comes to implementing an electronic medical record for your outpatient rehab facility, Chart Links provides clinical and work flow expertise.
We employ a team of software development, implementation and support experts that have dealt with the electronic documentation of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy evaluations for years. Our team can work with your therapists and staff members to determine how best to link an electronic patient chart to each critical resource in your rehab department.
Some of the services Chart Links offers includes:
- Engineering the system and designing the network
- Identifying and coding hospital system interfaces in HL7
- Prepare your therapists and office staff for implementation
- Applying technology to your current workflows with the least disruption to staff
- Writing customer reports that will help you best manage your facility
Contact a Chart Links representative today to learn more about how our rehab software can automate therapy documentation and scheduling for your outpatient rehab facility.
Spartanburg Eliminates Transcription Costs, Improves Clinician Productivity and Documentation Consistency Using Chart Links
Spartanburg Regional Rehabilitation Services is a division of Spartanburg Regional Healthcare System, which is based in South Carolina and was named one of the nation’s “Most Wired” hospitals in 2007 by Hospital & Health Networks magazine. Spartanburg Regional Rehabilitation Services focuses on physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech-language pathology, and includes 68 clinicians and 10 support staff across eight locations.
At the time that Spartanburg Regional Rehabilitation Services began evaluating electronic charting solutions, the organization’s use of paperbased patient charts required advanced planning to ensure that the chart was available at the location where the patient was visiting. In addition, Spartanburg maintained the majority of its paper-based charts older than one year at an off-site storage location. As a result, the office often had to retrieve records from offsite storage before patient visits.
“One of the many disadvantages of using paper-based documentation was that the therapists had to complete a billing sheet with every patient encounter, which was time consuming, and on some occasions, was not completed in a timely manner,” said Kelly Sheppard-Fowler, Practice Manager at Spartanburg Regional Rehabilitation Services. ” Another challenge with our manual processes was the lack of electronic scheduling, which makes it all too easy to encounter scheduling errors when coordinating across different sites.”
“The other solutions evaluated didn’t have the rehabilitation-specific functionality that we needed, such as specialized reports and templates, as well as a way to link clinical documentation with scheduled appointments,” Sheppard-Fowler said. “Most importantly, the solutions didn’t track insurance authorizations for patient visits, or notify the therapists when additional visit authorization was needed for the patient. Chart Links had all of these capabilities, plus much more.”
Spartanburg went live on Chart Links electronic documentation in August 2006 following a six-month implementation that included the creation of an interface to the organization’s McKesson Star billing system. “The implementation of Chart Links was successful due to the extensive planning and knowledge of the Chart Links staff. It was very helpful that the implementation staff included a therapist from Chart Links that could relate with our clinical staff,” Sheppard-Fowler said.
Users quickly adopted the solution because it mirrored the organization’s workflow. “Illegibility problems were immediately eliminated and the accuracy and thoroughness of our documentation improved drastically,” Sheppard-Fowler said.
Using Chart Links, Spartanburg clinicians no longer have to fill out billing sheets for each patient, since the system automatically completes the task. Edits within the system check that charges are compliant with private insurance and Medicare requirements, and that any charging errors are routed into a queue for review. To further prevent errors, the interface with the McKesson Star system allows Chart Links to confirm that patient information is consistent between the two systems. Additionally, Chart Links alerts therapists if Medicare modifiers are missing, and the system tracks patient visits that count toward insurance authorizations, automatically notifying clinicians when additional visits will require reauthorization. Chart Links also allows the clinical staff to fax plans of care directly out of the system to referring physicians, and has a tracking system to ensure compliance.
Since using Chart Links, reimbursement has increased due to more accurate documentation and the ability to track insurance authorizations that help avoid lost charges. Chart Links’ edit capabilities that catch errors before claim submissions have enabled Spartanburg to decrease its error rates significantly, which has reduced accounts receivable days.
In addition, Spartanburg eliminated its $10,000 per month transcription costs since all documentation is now electronic. “Chart Links helped make our documentation consistent across all our sites, and it’s easy to access a patient chart from any of our locations,” Sheppard-Fowler said.
Spartanburg implemented the Chart Links electronic scheduling module one year after going live with electronic documentation. “Initially, we utilized the hospital’s centralized department/software to handle our scheduling needs but the existing system did not accommodate our different sites, clinicians and specialties. As a result we encountered extensive scheduling errors. Most of these errors were eliminated once we began using the Chart Links scheduling system,” Sheppard-Fowler said.
Another benefit of using Chart Links is the system’s ability to help track clinician productivity. “Although we haven’t changed our productivity expectations, we have noticed that more clinicians are meeting their productivity goals,” Sheppard-Fowler said. “Prior to Chart Links, clinicians would simply turn in productivity reports to their manager, who would only contact clinicians if they were not meeting their goals. Now, clinicians actively monitor their productivity using Chart Links, which promotes accountability and self-motivation toward obtaining productivity goals.”
Providence Speech and Hearing Center Selects Chart Links Rehabilitation Software for 25 Therapists
Chart Links, a provider of rehabilitation workflow management software, announces the selection of its electronic therapy documentation and scheduling system by a team of 25 audiologists, speech therapists and pediatric occupational therapists at Providence Speech and Hearing Center, a not-for-profit leading provider of services to the speech and hearing impaired of Orange County, California. The software implementation will include functionality for electronic therapy documentation, cross-discipline therapy scheduling, referrals, insurance authorizations and charges. It also includes a patient demographic and billing interface to the existing practice management system.
“Our mission is to enrich life through the gifts of speech and hearing,” says Linda H. Smith, CEO of Providence Speech and Hearing Center. “Because of the efficiencies we’ll gain by automating our administrative and clinical workflows with Chart Links, we’re projecting an increase in patient load and a drastic reduction in our wait list of 1000 patients, all of whom are children.”
In 2008, Providence provided services to more than 21,000 people. Approximately 80% of Providence Speech and Hearing Center’s work is dedicated to low-income patients who are either uninsured or underinsured.
“We selected Chart Links over other systems because it was built for therapists practicing in an outpatient setting,” says Smith. “By enhancing their productivity, we expect to increase our time spent with patients and improve outcomes.”
Chart Links software streamlines all of the daily tasks associated with a patient’s physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology, or audiology visit. The software manages adult and pediatric therapy treatment by automating evaluations, flow sheets, plans of care, progress notes, patient education, and clinical correspondence. It also manages payer compliance, provider reimbursement, outcomes reporting, administrative functions, business intelligence and enterprise productivity.
About Chart Links, LLC
For 15 years, Chart Links has developed rehabilitation software that automates workflow for referrals, insurance authorizations, cross-discipline scheduling, documentation, charges, and more. Chart Links allows medical rehabilitation facilities to be more efficient and to provide a higher quality of care by delivering results in the areas of compliance, outcomes, analytics and revenue.http://www.chartlinks.com?source=prweb
About Providence Speech and Hearing Center
Founded in 1965 by Sister Margaret Anne Inman Ph.D., Providence Speech and Hearing Center is the leading service provider to the speech and hearing impaired of Orange County, California. With over 40 years of experience, Providence has grown from a one room house to a multi-million dollar non-profit organization. Providence served over 21,000 appointments in 2008 to over 3,200 unique patients. They offer a full array of speech and hearing services for children and adults alike; and, because they believe everyone deserves the gifts of speech and hearing, they accept most major insurance companies and medical groups as well as providing grants, scholarships and financing options for patients from low-income families. http:// http://www.pshc.org
Optimizing Outpatient Rehab Therapy Documentation with Software
The July issue of Rehab Management features an article written by Mark Finn that focuses on Software Solutions for Multisite Therapy Practices.
Mark cites the following areas to automate in a multi-site physical therapy practice for gaining improved efficiencies:
- Workflow Automation
- Manual Documentation
- Claims Processing
- Reporting
- Clinical Documentation
We encourage you to read the full article to learn some tips on how to spend less time dealing with paperwok, documentation and reports — and more time treating a greater number of patients.
If you need help evaluating electronic medical records systems for your multi-site outpatient rehabilitation facility, contact Chart Links.
CCHIT Addresses EHRs for Inpatient Rehabilitation
A task force of the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology (CCHIT) has issued recommendations for a new long term and post acute care electronic health records certification program.
The program would cover EHRs in skilled nursing and nursing facilities, Medicare-certified home health agencies, inpatient rehabilitation facilities and long term acute care hospitals.
Recommendations from the task force include identifying core certification criteria common to the four priority care settings, reusing or adapting existing criteria from other CCHIT programs, identifying additional criteria specific to each care setting, and developing a roadmap indicating when the criteria are expected to be implemented.
A newly appointed CCHIT work group on long term and post acute care will start developing certification criteria in mid-July. The recommendations from the task force are available at cchit.org/about/organization/commission/advisory/ltpac.
[Source: Information taken from HealthData Management, written by Joseph Goedert.]
Work Flow Software for the Outpatient Director of Rehabilitation
At an outpatient rehab facility, the work of a Director of Rehabilitation is never done. While information technology is only one piece of the puzzle – it’s critical for keeping team productivity high and providing insightful data that will support decision-making.
Rehabilitation work flow management software will automate processes like registration, referrals, scheduling, insurance authorizations, physician authorizations and charges. It will offer comprehensive electronic documentation of evaluations, plans of care and progress notes. It will interface seamlessly with other information systems to ensure the dependable and accurate flow of administrative, clinical and financial information.
What are the benefits of an outpatient rehab work flow management system?
- compliance with therapy billing regulations
- increased operational efficiency
- a reduction in lost revenue
- a potential increase in revenue
Many outpatient rehab facilities still operate manually today, using paper charts to document care and route patients. As the Obama Administration advocates for interoperability among healthcare providers, the time is right for Directors of Rehabilitation to take a look at work flow management software solutions designed with their needs in mind.
For more information on work flow management systems for outpatient rehab, contact Chart Links.
Speech and Hearing Center Reduces Therapy Documentation Turnaround Time
Since using Chart Links speech therapy documentation software, Columbus Speech & Hearing Center has virtually eliminated redundant data entry and reduced clinical documentation turnaround time from two weeks down to a few days. This increased efficiency has enabled the Center to add clinicians while decreasing its clerical staff.
Completing and filing clinical documentation posed challenges for the Center before it began using Chart Links. For proper billing, every patient encounter needs to be documented with a progress note. However, progress notes often got lost, were illegible or didn’t get completed in a timely fashion. With Chart Links, clinicians are able to easily complete the progress notes within the system, and business managers can use the system to monitor the status of progress notes before backlogs get out of control.
Similarly, evaluation and treatment documents used to be handwritten by clinicians and sent to word processors to type. The manual process used to take two to three weeks to complete and included typing the notes, clarifying illegible or unclear notes, as well incorporating one to two revisions before the document was finalized. Now, clinicians can enter their evaluation and treatment notes directly into the system, and - once again - business managers can track the status of the process along the way. “Now it’s very easy for the department director to go into the system and see who hasn’t done their evaluation reports or their treatment reports, which helps us avoid major backlogs and helps to ensure we remain compliant with our accreditation and quality standards,” says Karen Deeter, director of operations at the Center.
The increased productivity and efficiency facilitated by Chart Links has enabled the organization to add clinicians, while decreasing the size of its clerical staff.
The Center is realizing the benefits of moving away from paper-based processes. “Chart Links is helping us transition toward the use of electronic documentation throughout our practice, and has substantially reduced the hassles of tracking and filing paper-based documents,” said Dawn Gleason, president and CEO of the Center. “We are now entering electronic audiology files into the system, and we’re able to scan in the historical patient records for the patients who we see on an ongoing basis. Overall, Chart Links has helped us improve our workflow and reduce administrative tasks.”
Based in Columbus, Ohio, the Columbus Speech & Hearing Center serves nearly 10,000 people across Ohio. Center services include: audiology and hearing aid services; speech-language and occupational therapy; as well as the Comprehensive Program for the Deaf, a job placement program for adults who are hard-of-hearing or deaf. The Center collaborates with numerous other agencies and community organizations in a full-time program of education, testing, evaluation, therapy and vocational counseling at the Center, throughout Central Ohio, and across the state.
Read more about our speech therapy documentation software.
Read the full case study on Columbus Speech & Hearing Center.
Features and Benefits of Therapy Documentation Software
By trading in pens, papers, labels and folders for therapy documentation software, therapists can
- spend more time with their patients
- monitor key performance measures
- report on outcomes
- save an enormous amount of filing space in their facility
Here are some of the areas that can become automated with the right therapy documentation software:
Patient Arrival Notification. For a busy outpatient facility to maintain its schedule, it’s critical to know exactly when patients arrive. Look for a complete workflow management system that notifies therapists by pager when a patient has checked-in at the front desk.
Evaluations. A robust therapy documentation system will offer a vast array of discipline-specific evaluation forms. Look for a system developed by therapists that contains an extensive library of numerous sections. The system should enable the therapist to to customize the library of sections into sets and forms that meet the guidelines or preferences of his/her documentation approach.
Flow Sheets. A good therapy documentation system will provide electronic management of clinical data entry that allows for review of patient progress over time. The automation of flow sheets should accommodate multi-disciplinary documentation requirements. It’s also good practice to link the flow sheets back to a progress note.
Plans of Care. Look for a therapy documentation system that auto-generates plan of care reports directly from the evaluation. The report should include recommendations, plans and goals for the patient. To help administrators effectively manage multiple clinicians, the system should notify managers of incomplete or overdue plans of care as well as physician approvals. To save time and further streamline processes, look for a system in which plan of care reports may be electronically signed and faxed directly from the desktop.
Progress Notes. A good benefit of a therapy documentation system is its ability to track patient progress. The patient shoud be monitored on the system from scheduling and check-in through the evaluation and on to discharge. By automatically creating a daily progress note for each patient at check-in, the system is able to link documentation to billing and help eliminate lost charges.
Clinical Messaging and Correspondence. It’s one thing to document INTO a system and another thing to get information OUT. Make sure that your therapy documentation system can transmit authorized patient-specific information in a secure electronic format. The system should provide customizable letters, forms and reports that streamline communications related to patient treatment and reimbursement.
Patient Education. Most therapy documentation systems print-on-demand patient handouts (i.e., home programs, exercises) or even interface to third-party electronic formats. Many offer an ability to scan-in existing sheets as well as to make your own. Make sure the system includes instructional and educational materials that may be customized prior to distribution.
Therapist Productivity Management. With automation comes the ability to generate reports. Reports become an effective tool to manage the facility more effectively. Check to make sure that your therapy documentation system offers tracking mechanisms for therapist productivity by units, service analysis, billed time, total time spent, and other criteria.
For more features and benefits of a full rehabilitation workflow management system, visit our rehabilitation software website.
Electronic Documentation Software for Rehab
A recent article in Physical Therapy Products, titled “Electronic Efficiency: Using software for business and treatment solutions” and written by Nina Silberstein, covers stories of four therapists that are using electronic therapy documentation software.
Among the therapists featured was Tracie Rodak, PT, who works for Spartanburg Regional, a large not-for-profit hospital in South Carolina that is a customer of Chart Links’ therapy documentation software. Tracie is the manager of the outpatient pediatric rehabilitation program and treats the special needs population that includes childres with cerebral palsy, Down syndrome and autism.
When asked about the software’s capabilities for managers who want to track productivity, Tracie had this to say:
“…when a patient is checked in, our therapists automatically get a notification that says the patient is here. It creates an incomplete note and charge ticket. [The therapists] are constantly working down their lists [of how many notes they have left and how many evals and plans of care are due daily]. Technically, they can’t sign a file unless they’ve done all the parts. The nice thing is that they can’t sign the note and forget to bill. The system won’t let it happen. As a manager, I can see everyone’s incomplete notes, where before, I wouldn’t have any idea unless there was a problem. I’m able to manage better.”
Margaret Mary Community Hospital Implements Chart Links Rehabilitation Software for Therapists
Chart Links is happy to announce the implementation of its therapy documentation and scheduling system by a team of 19 physical, occupational and speech therapists at the Outpatient Rehabilitation Center of Margaret Mary Community Hospital (MMCH), a not-for-profit critical access hospital providing inpatient and outpatient services in Batesville, IN.
The hospital provides a broad scope of services including 24-hour emergency, family-centered maternity, outpatient rehabilitation, home health, hospice and oncology. The MMCH Outpatient Rehabilitation Center provides speech, occupational and physical therapies. Other Rehab Services include vestibular therapy, work conditioning, aquatic therapy, sports medicine, lymphedema therapy, driver’s assessment, and a wheel chair clinic.
The software implementation includes functionality for electronic therapy documentation, cross-discipline therapy scheduling, referral and insurance authorization management, charges and more. It also includes inbound admission/discharge/transfer (ADT) and outbound billing and results interfaces to the Meditech hospital information system.
“We chose Chart Links due to its adaptability for both inpatient and outpatient therapy documentation,” says Carmen Pride, PT, Manager of Physical Therapy at MMCH and project lead for the system implementation. “As we become experts using the system, the time therapists spend documenting will go down and the quality time therapists spend with patients will go up. That will result in better patient outcomes and increased patient satisfaction levels.”
Chart Links software streamlines all of the daily tasks associated with a patient’s physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech language pathology, or audiology visit. The software manages adult and pediatric therapy treatment by automating evaluations, flow sheets, plans of care, progress notes, patient education, and clinical correspondence. It also manages payer compliance, provider reimbursement, outcomes reporting, administrative functions, business intelligence and enterprise productivity.
To learn more about Chart Links Rehabilitation Software, visit http://www.chartlinks.com.
Therapy Documentation Software Return On Investment
When it comes to automating therapy documentation, funding is one of the biggest challenges outpatient rehab facilities face.
If you’re struggling to make a compelling business case for electronic medical records to your hospital board of directors, consider all of the operational areas that will yield quantifiable results. As you build your case, marry up metrics to timeframes as a part of your formula for return on investment.
Efficiency Improvements
When you automate therapy appointments, appointment reminders, referral management, authorization tracking, evaluations, plans of care, progress notes, flow sheets, and more; information can be called up and acted on almost immediately. List out and quantify all of the administrative task time this saves. Consider improvements in communications alone as it relates to time spent on referrals, authorizations and appointment reminders. The staff productivity gained allows for major improvements in therapist work flow which, over time, allows more patients to be seen in the same amount of time.
Cost Savings
One of the greatest cost savings brought by electronic therapy documentation is the elimination of transcription costs. Because therapists enter clinical documentation directly into the system, traditional paper-based methods are greatly reduced, if not eliminated. Determine your current cost per therapist or per page for transcription. Estimate, conservatively, a reduction in transcription costs. This will likely be one of the most significant contributors to your overall cost savings with an electronic therapy documentation system. Don’t forget to consider other paper chart costs in the ROI equation:
- supplies for creating and storing charts (from folders, stickers and dividers to cabinets)
- labor expenses for managing chart pulls, filing and audits
- copying expenses for documentation to attorneys, payers and physicians
Revenue Enhancements
Electronic therapy documentation opens new doors for driving revenue that should be considered as a part of return on investment. Consider how much more compliant, complete and accurate documentation becomes when it has the checks and balances of automation. Coding levels and claim errors correlate directly to documentation of the encounter. When therapy documentation occurs electronically, therapists report greater confidence levels as it pertains to Correct Coding Initiative (CCI) Edits, Medicare time tracking (or the eight minute rule), authorization tracking, and other compliance issues that can help or inhibit proper reimbursement. Consider improvements in billing accuracy as a part of your ROI analysis.
Quality Improvements
Some of the less tangible returns of electronic therapy documentation include quality. In most cases, electronic documentation allows for quicker, more legible, better organized and more comprehensive patient documentation overall. Across the outpatient rehab facility, automation standardizes clinical documentation, reducing inconsistencies in structure, poor handwriting, and lag time in documentation and approvals. Patient education sheets are readily accessible and up to date. Plan of care reports are auto-generated from the evaluation, able to be monitored, electronically signed, and faxed from the desktop. These and many other improvements in quality should be considered in ROI.
Summary
In an outpatient setting, electronic therapy documentation impacts both the therapist and staff productivity. A good business case for return on investment should focus on
- efficiency improvements
- cost savings
- revenue enhancements
- quality improvements
If you need help putting together your Return on Investment business case for an electronic therapy documentation system, please contact us.
Therapy Documentation Software
The December issue of Rehab Management magazine (Vol. 21, No. 10) presents, on page 37, a business software matrix for rehab providers. The matrix, compiled by Rehab Management Associate Editor Judy O’Rourke, is aimed at helping providers make informed decisions when considering product purchases.
Chart Links is among over a dozen participating providers of therapy documentation and billing software.
The matrix is available for download in a pdf format at rehabpub.com.
Should you require any additional information about the Chart Links rehab software offering, please do not hesitate to contact us at 888.369.0707 so that we may help you navigate the differences between systems.
Also, please note that Chart Links offers a variety of other products and services aimed at rehab providers:
- physical therapy reimbursement tools
- therapy web design
- reporting and analytics
- therapy workflow analysis and consulting services
Chart Links at ASHA Booth #962
Chart Links will exhibit at the 2008 Annual American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention at McCormick Place West in Chicago, Illinois on November 20-22, 2008 in booth #962.
Stop by to see John Rea or Robert Stafford and see our speech therapy documentation tools. Our rehab software streamlines the daily clinical and administrative tasks in a large speech and hearing clinic:
- Therapy Scheduling
- Patient Arrival Notification
- Referral Management
- Authorizations
- Speech Therapy Documentation (plan of care, progress notes, evaluations)
- Speech-Language Pathology Patient Education
- Speech Therapy Marketing
- Regulatory Compliance
- Etc.
Learn more about our speech therapy software and rehab software in general.
For a complete listing of tradeshows at which Chart Links will exhibit please view our tradeshow schedule.
Ann W. Kummer to Speak about Speech Therapy Software at ASHA
We’re happy to announce that Ann Kummer, PhD, CCC-SLP, ASHA-F, will speak at the 2008 Annual American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) Convention on November 22, 2008 in Chicago, IL from 8-9am. The presentation, entitled “It’s Not IF You’ll Computerize, It’s WHEN and HOW,” will cover 10 things that speech-language pathology (SLP) clinics should consider when evaluating speech therapy software to automate their documentation and administration. Dr. Kummer is the Senior Director of Speech Pathology at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) and Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
“More than a decade ago, we embarked upon a mission to reduce the documentation and administrative demands within our organization,” says Dr. Kummer. “Today, we leverage information technology to automate our processes, streamline workflow, reduce billing errors, increase coding compliance, and improve the quality, consistency and turn-around time of our documentation.”
In 1995, Dr. Kummer chose Chart Links Rehab Software to meet the unique documentation needs of a speech pathology department that couldn’t be met with a generic clinical documentation or electronic medical records system. Within a year of launching the system, the Speech Pathology Department at Cincinnati Children’s started realizing the benefits of automation, which included:
- 1-2 hours of increased billed time per week per full-time equivalent therapist
- Increased reimbursement resulting from consistent processes
- Decreased support staff costs
- Improved net revenues
- Improved staff and patient satisfaction
The cost reductions in computerizing the documentation and administrative processes continue to deliver a financial return to the organization each year.
Dr. Kummer’s department has been computerized with Chart Links Rehab Software since 1995. She is the author of Business Practices: A Guide for Speech-Language Pathologists published by ASHA. She is also the author of Cleft Palate and Craniofacial Anomalies: Effects on Speech and Resonance published by Delmar Cengage Learning, 2 Edition (July, 2007).
To learn more about Chart Links’ Rehab Software, visit booth #962 at the American Speech-Language-Pathology Association (ASHA) Annual Convention in Chicago, Illinois on November 20-22, 2008, call 888.369.0707, or visit our website.
Article: Chart Links online at Executive Healthcare Management
Ron Miller, M.D., our President and Chief Medical Officer, and Betty Esposito, our Vice President, were asked to contribute an online editorial to Executive Healthcare Management magazine. The article is entitled “Rehabilitation Clinics Can Level the Playing Field: Leveraging Electronic Charting Solutions to Improve Documentation, Coding Accuracy, and Billing Processes.”
The article covers the ways in which rehabilitation clinics can use software to track and bill for care in order to compete effectively and earn a profit in today’s market. The article delves into how electronic charting solutions help therapists to comprehensively and accurately document patient care, reducing human error and complying with regulatory requirements.
It covers four areas where electronic charting can help level the playing field with technology-enabled resources:
- Correct Coding Initiative Edits (CCI Edits)
- Time Tracking
- Account Tracking
- Authorizations
Article: Carle Clinic Ahead of Schedule
Lindie Peters, a physical therapist at Carle Clinic, was recently published in ADVANCE for Directors in Rehabilitation, Vol. 17, Issue 7, Page 60, Products At Work. The article is entitled “Ahead of Schedule: Chart Links improves efficiency and accuracy for busy clinicians.”
The article covers how physical therapists at Carle Therapy Services use Chart Links Rehabilitation Software to document evaluations, treatments, and plans of care for doctor authorizations. The solution has allowed them to reduce errors and redundancy by interfacing scheduling, documentation and charge entry.
Carle Therapy Services is affiliated with 305-bed Carle Foundation Hospital. They have more than 120 clinicians generating up to 90 care plans each day.
To learn even more about Carle Therapy Services, read their Customer Case Study online.