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...what happens next is critical, both to a successful admission and to your reputation as a care provider. The people with the power to make or break that experience are your admissions coordinators. They are the face of your community, the first critical touch point in the admissions experience.
Susie Myers (VP, Sales and Marketing) Fundamental Clinical and Operational Services, LLC (FCOS), not only understands the value of admissions personnel, but is using AdmitPlus admissions technology to transform antiquated processes that have kept them shackled to redundant, tedious tasks ranging from organizing and updating documents, to chasing down signatures, to staying after hours to get everything else done.
Giving admissions personnel back valuable time has brought FCOSa broad spectrum of benefits. Of course, there are the thousands of dollars saved in overtime hours, specialized training and hard costs like paper and wear and tear.
But the real value, Susie has experienced, is in giving admissions coordinators the time to deliver the kind of quality move in experience that residents and families now expect. The real savings has come in being able to take the time needed with new residents to ensure they are welcomed properly. And what can be more important to a resident coming out of a stressful acute care situation?
The path to a streamlined, hassle-free admissions process was something Susie had long been fighting for. And for good reason. For years, FCOS’s client facilities had been using a manual paper-based admissions process across a network of client facilities that can range between 80-100, that had created a multitude of weak links, each of which exposed FCOS to everything from revenue loss to employee burnout to potential lawsuits. The negative impact from manually organizing and executing 20+ forms, 80 pages, per resident, is more far-reaching than many might think.
Preparing the documents for signing was taking 20-40 minutes. And, due to HIPAA constraints, forms couldn’t be emailed. Furthermore, each form had to be manually uploaded into their MatrixCare EHR system. This was extremely time consuming. Admissions coordinators regularly had to stay late to do other work to prepare for the new residents. Overtime pay had become the expensive norm. "Out of an eight-hour day, they were spending 6-7 on admissions paperwork,” Susie says.
Manual processes also caused many missed billing opportunities. Some were due to lack of tracking of services rendered prior to final documents being signed, others for services provided for residents who became ill and were hospitalized before admission or discharged prior to paying their bill. As a result, financial losses occurred that could have been avoided.
Finally, the possible errors that come with a manual process, such as missed signatures and lost paperwork, opened FCOS up to increased risk and potential lawsuits. With all that, it isn’t surprising that, when asked how users would rate their current set of processes, staff rated it a “1”.
Of course, all of these issues were exacerbated by the pandemic. And yet, the pandemic also helped Susie, by underscoring the need for automation and creating an environment ripe for change. “The pandemic is really what stopped FCOS from dragging their feet,” Susie says. Since Susie had already spent years preparing for the day when senior management would green light an admissions automation project, she was ready with a list of needs for the new system.
The system needed to be easy to use, with a dashboard interface. Also key was integration with their MatrixCare EHR, to remove the need to re-key in data. The ability to send and execute documents electronically was a must. Finally, visibility across all records from all locations was critical to track progress and compliance.
Susie did her homework, looking into several systems, including DocuSign and others. But she kept coming back to AdmitPlus because it offered everything she needed to make the process work better. “I don’t think there was anything we asked for in the very beginning that we didn’t get,” she says.
Theadmissions coordinator seamlessly pulls data directly from MatrixCare(eliminating duplicate data entry and mistakes), saves the record, AdmitPlusautomatically creates all the documents, populates the resident data in everydocument and readies them for signing.
AdmitPlus then sends a link to the family portal for secure signing or the A/C can sign in person. Once everything is signed, AdmitPlus saves all the documents directly into the correct folders in MatrixCare.
AdmitPlus was able to save valuable time for the admissions coordinators as well as for management. It has tied up loose ends to pave the way for billing of all services rendered, regardless of when. It has also enabled, for the first time, a method to track compliance across all locations.
The ripple effect of using AdmitPlus has been huge. For instance, the visibility provided with the platform has created a much more collaborative environment between staff and management. Recently when a regional manager noticed that a location had a large number of new admissions, he was able to instantly enter the system and assist the admissions coordinator at that client facility proactively, without her asking for help.
The anecdotes of time savings, money savings and happy employees continue to roll out from every corner of the organization. One admissions coordinator told Susie, “I’ve been doing admissions for ten years and probably nine of them have been spent on admissions packets. So I am so excited, this is so efficient!” Others talk about regaining lost hours. “I get so much time back in my day,” a coordinator told Susie.
While it may have taken a number of years, and a pandemic, to bring much needed automation and integration to the admissions process, Susie feels confident she found the right partner. Especially for the business they are in. “Time is so precious because we deliver such a personal service to human beings,” she says. “If you have no time to be nice, it really affects your business.”
At every turn, Susie hears great things about AdmitPlus and how easy it is to use. Others have been motivated enough to pick up the phone to tell her how pleased they are. “Half of them call me and say, ‘This is the best thing I have ever seen in my life.’”
Fundamental Clinical and Operational Services,LLC (FCOS), headquartered in Sparks, Marylandsupports skilled nursing services across 82 clientfacilities located the US.
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