The Benefits of Alerts and Notifications for Home Health Care

Compliance is critical for home health providers. As noted by recent data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG), reports have identified “high error rates” across home health care agencies (HHAs) regarding Medicare claims and payments.¹ And while the shift to 30-day billing periods under the patient-driven groupings model (PDGM) has the potential to help reduce billing errors, it also introduces increased compliance complexity for home health providers — if they’re unable to accurately track and record patient visits, treatment tasks and outcomes, revenues can suffer.²

Home health care software with customizable and configurable alerts and notifications for home health staff can help address this compliance challenge. Here’s how.

Consistent Contact and Customizable Alerts Facilitate Communication

With demand for in-home care services increasing rapidly as patients and their families opt for aging in place over more traditional managed care settings, home care staff are tasked with juggling more patients, more plans and more care metrics than ever before.³ This puts staff in more places, more often, leaving less time for teams to connect, debrief and ensure current operations align with business goals.

The result is a growing need for consistent contact across care organizations — front-line care staff, clinicians and specialized providers need ways to easily connect and communicate on-demand. Home health software with secure, HIPAA-compliant messaging and customizable alerts empowers teams to quickly connect without compromising patient data. 

Active Alerts and Real-Time Document Referencing Reduces Regulatory Risk

With volume and value of available health care data rapidly increasing, truly personalized patient care is now the rule — rather than the exception.⁴ But delivering in-depth, patient-specific care plans comes with a caveat: complexity. Treatments, goals and outcomes differ significantly from patient to patient, creating a challenge for accurate and timely care reporting. If goals aren’t clearly articulated or milestones are missed, the result could be challenges to submitted claims and possible denial of payment.

Home health care software can help streamline this process with real-time referencing to previous documentation within current care plans along with active alerts for potential compliance issues to help teams stay ahead of regulatory reporting expectations.

Task-Based Workflows and Notifications Increase Point-Of-Care Compliance

To deliver on the goal of patient-centered care, clinicians and staff benefit from a task-based model that breaks down larger treatment plans into smaller and more manageable steps. This is especially critical as the number of care patients increases — as schedules fill up it’s easy to unintentionally skip a step or miss a task, in turn reducing point-of-care compliance.

Software for home health providers helps address this issue with patient-centric interfaces that assist staff to organize their workdays based on currently open items and patient-specific tasks. For each individual visit, progress bars mark current percentage goal completion and notifications by priority indicate outstanding items, in turning providing clarity for patients and increased compliance for providers. Best-in-class home health solutions also offer auto-saving features to help ensure completed work is never lost, even if software is accidentally closed or connections are lost. 

¹ OIG, “Home Health Compliance with Medicare Requirements,” 2021.
² Home Health Care News, “How Home Health Agencies Can Optimize Outcomes, Avoid LUPAs Under PDGM’s 30-Day Billing Periods,” March 28, 2021.
³ EY, “Five Trends Driving the Emergence of the Personalized Health Ecosystem,” April 28, 2020.
⁴ Home Health Care News, “Business Is Booming, But Home Care Demand Is ‘Probably at a Midpoint’,” December 2, 2020.