Buyers beware: many hospice EMR solutions were adapted from home health instead of built specifically for hospices. What does that mean? Home health vendors simply add a few hospice features to their existing home health solution and call it “hospice certified.” Not only does this leave hospices with an ill-fitting solution, it forces clinicians to deal with unnecessary fields (like OASIS questions) and use lengthy workarounds just to complete documentation. Translation? Lower productivity, declining revenue and frustrated clinicians.
Hospices get lured into purchasing these solutions because they’re typically priced lower, but the following quotes from real users (who switched to Optima Hospice) demonstrate that these solutions end up costing much more.
Deteriorating productivity from lengthy, frustrating assessments:
“The initial assessment is a humongous beast!” – Tammy, Assistant Director at a New York hospice with 45 ADC
Strangled cash flow due to error-ridden billing claims:
“Every month we’re forced to rework 30% of our claims because the software was built for home health and doesn’t have any hard stops for hospice.” – Doug, CFO of a Georgia hospice with 900+ ADC
In addition, hospice software adapted from home health software creates risk during chart audits, because surveyors start to ask questions when they see workaround care plans and deficient documentation, which could lead to fines.
The good news is there are solutions built from the ground up for hospice that significantly minimize this risk and allow hospices to focus on their patients instead of their inadequate software.
Download the Hospice EMR Software Comparison Checklist to find the best software for your hospice.
