The Challenge
Rated by IBM Watson as one of the Top 100 hospitals, East Liverpool City Hospital – a small Ohio-based facility specializing in occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), speech language pathology (SLP) and other rehabilitation programs – implemented Net Health’s legacy rehab therapy EHR software years ago. This was sufficient for their needs at the time, but eventually it could not keep up with their growth – they were looking for a better way to complete documentation and bill for rehab therapy services.
Staff members were spending too much time finalizing documentation at month end with Net Health’s legacy rehab therapy EHR, and as a result, staff dissatisfaction and documentation errors were high, according to Aaron Kubistek, Director of Rehabilitation for East Liverpool City Hospital. Issues included:
- Unmanageable billing and clinical report errors
- Lack of timely and accurate documentation completion
- Lost revenue
- Low staff efficiency and satisfaction
The Solution
After investigating various options, Kubistek and his team chose to migrate to Net Health Therapy. East Liverpool City Hospital really needed the software’s unique capabilities, such as:
- Guided workflows that enable complete, compliant and accurate documentation, which reduces clinical reporting errors
- Streamlined billing processes that speed up claim submission and reduce claim denials due to inaccurate charges, codes and patient information
- Options for integrating with the existing Hospital Information System (HIS)
- Accurate information flow from treatment to billing, which minimizes manual tasks
Any anxiety staff had about learning a new system dissolved quickly. After just a few months, the staff was already proficient with the application and were meeting Kubistek’s ROI metrics. Younger staff especially liked the user-friendly interface and modern appearance with extra “bells and whistles”.
The Results
Aaron Kubistek can now better manage his department and save hours of work each month. He is now able to easily measure captured revenue and units per visit. He has exceeded his self-imposed ROI targets, with an increased margin of profit on all PT and OT activities.
In particular, reporting accuracy and timeliness have greatly improved. “Now I run these reports once a week,” Kubistek says. “I can see what hasn’t been signed or documented. I can look back at any mistakes and metrics. I can give feedback within a few days.”
Other results:
- KPIs are easily accessible, allowing for improved billing and documentation processes, which have reduced or eliminated hundreds of coding errors.
- ROI is up due to improved billing and scheduling processes.
- Staff retention has improved because clinicians are confident in documentation completion status and able to spend more time working with patients.
- Staff can obtain the right metrics at the right time, streamlining the workflow.
- Accessibility to the application is more convenient for staff with a cloud-based system that is updated automatically with the latest features and functionality.