Home Health Gold

"Every other week I use Professional to monitor our critical PPS statistics; LUPAs, case mix and therapy changes. Watching our case mix, and making sure our billing is as accurate as possible, has the potential to dramatically increase our bottom line and increase the care we can provide."

"Professional provides a second set of knowledgeable eyes at the end of the month to double check our billing. Consistently we find 2or 3 episodes that may not have been billed out – it points out items that may be currently overlooked and allows us to address them in a timely manner."

"Our auditors use it as a balancing tool, to substantiate everything is the same on both our systems. They consider it to be a very accurate, valid tool."

"When I first came here I said, 'I have to have Professional, I can’t do my job as well without it.'"

"Professional provides information in clear reports that bridge the gap between different fields of expertise within our agency. It sparks discussions."

"The program is an educational tool, as well as a financial one. I run detailed patient reports daily and forward them to clinical supervisors with notes that open conversations. I might suggest they keep an eye on this patient, ask that a coding is double-checked, or inquire about a therapy visit."

"I use summary reports to track LUPAs. Professional makes it easy for me to have this number and our case-mix ratio always at the tip of my tongue. Nurses will ask as they pass me in the hall, 'How are our LUPAs?' or 'Where do we stand with case-mix?' Professional encourages communication because it gives immediate access to data, in very easy to understand reports."

"It helps me ensure our systems are on track and running smoothly. Reports give me a heads up for what assessments are coming due, or which recerts are due and where we are concerning the 5-day window."

"We use Professional all the time. We are able to monitor our utilization, make sure it is on track with our treatment plan, and study its impact upon our outcomes."

"We use it consistently to ensure our documentation supports our patient’s needs, and to keep track of HHRGs and the amount of money our patients are eligible for."

"We use the Dashboard to quickly drill-down and keep an eye on high risk patients, LUPAs, patients having been seen by only one nurse, and any therapy changes."

"It is also a great compliance check. It points out assessment sequence errors."

"Professional does exactly what it is advertised to do."

"I think HHG Professional is a "must" for an agency of any size. It helps you to assure the accuracy of your OASIS data and manage your outcomes. I was really amazed at the many features and the ease of use. And we have found that it requires a very short learning curve."

"Our initial focus was on taking advantage of the error-trapping reports and the Adverse Events reporting. We have now integrated these features into our routine processing of OASIS data, and I am beginning to run reports which focus on some of our more difficult and costly patient groups."

"The flexible query tool allows you look at just about anything. I have been able easily to identify and study pain patients and wound care patients. By comparing the Start of Care and Discharge responses for patients with particular outcomes we have been able to identify weaknesses in our assessments and work with staff to bring our assessments into line with CMS guidelines."

"I am enjoying learning about HHG Professional and keep figuring out how to apply it to other tasks and questions."

"Before we got Professional, managing our agency was like driving a car without a gas gauge. Now I have the reporting mechanism I need!"

"When we first switched to a point of care system, we had to be very careful not to overlook completing certain forms. With our large patient volume, and without the reams of paper as a reminder, it was easy to miss some forms. Now, the OASIS tools, like the Audit for Sequence and Assessments Due and Overdue, make sure we are in total compliance."

"I routinely and easily pull Case-Mix Weight and Average Visits Per Episode reports for our hospital board. With Professional it takes a fraction of the time to prepare this data, and I can show I have a handle on our agency's progress of operations."

"Our Staff is becoming more aware of the impact of their OASIS answers. In the past I tried to explain, but now I have reports I can hand out before we case-conference. Now we know exactly what questions to ask, and what to devote our time to during meetings."

"With Professional I can easily get at the data I need to analyze our business. For instance, this morning I am investigating if there are habits of care that are driving up our wound center costs. With this program I can produce the information I need to see if there are, in fact, trends."

"Our staff finds the Clinical Inconsistencies report invaluable. Now our team coordinators hand out the report and hear, "Oh man, I didn't mean to answer that!" It's an easy way for management to approach the staff, and it's a great educational tool."

"I have found HHG Professional to be an essential tool. I use it continually to monitor our performance under PPS. The system is very flexible and improvements are constantly being added to the software. It's very easy to operate, extremely quick, and the support has been great. You really should not be without this software."

"I use HHG Professional biweekly to monitor our reimbursements. In the past I wrote my own auditing program, extracting data from our billing system and producing the revenue calculations. HHG Professional gets me the same detailed, accurate results - but much faster, without the time consuming hand programming.

I find understanding the program to be intuitive; it's very easy to use. It is continually being improved. A couple of the updates responded to my suggestions, so I know the HHG team listens to their users."

"A quick review of our data immediately after purchasing HHG Professional caught $6,000 in therapy upgrades which might have been lost without the software. My staff is extremely interested in the easy-to-use program and particularly in the Clinical Inconsistencies report."

"We are participating in the Michigan Award of Excellence 2005 project to improve patient outcomes. We are concentrating our investigation on two OASIS items, dyspnea and transfers. With Best Buddy we get at this data very quickly. If we were attempting to compile this information manually it would be an overwhelming task.

"I used Best Buddy's query function to study our emergent care for cardiac patients. As a result of this analysis, we are working on best practices to improve our outcomes."

"I use the Clinical Inconsistencies and Adverse Events reports everyday. It is great to be able to discuss these results right away with our clinicians, rather than try to reconstruct the details of a visit months down the line."

"In the first six months of using Best Buddy we have essentially eliminated the data error proportion of our Adverse Events. Prior to this, when we reviewed our data we found there was a 50% error component in all our Adverse Events as reported by the State."

"Having confidence that our data is a clean as possible allows us to focus our attention on problematic patient issues and specific questions we want to study."

"The Clinical Inconsistencies and Adverse Events reports have been enlightening for our clinicians. They spend the majority of their time out in the field, concentrating on patients. They are not as familiar with the impact one answer can have on the rest of an assessment. Now they can see patterns in the way they answer questions, and its effect overall on the amount of care available to their patients. It is very helpful to have our clinicians learning from their own patient data and answers."

"We determine our utilization on a case-by-case basis so it is extremely critical that the clinician's OASIS answers provide a true reflection of their patients' needs. With Best Buddy we have confidence another set of knowledgeable eyes has reviewed every assessment."

"Best Buddy is definitely a good investment. You can recoup your expenditure by catching errors in just a few episodes."

"I made my decision to purchase after speaking with users who routinely said they relied on the program and couldn't imagine submitting before running an assessment through Best Buddy."

"I export OASIS data twice a month. A few days before, I run the Adverse Events report. The clinicians and I then determine if corrections need to be made, and if they do, we make them before we submit any data. It is invaluable to me to know I am sending off clean data."

"With Best Buddy I can easily run reports staff are looking for. For instance, I just ran how many recerts were done in a certain period."

"We participate in an Acute Care Hospitalization study. I recommend Best Buddy as a quick, accurate way for agencies to determine and study those patient's receiving emergent care."

"I run every medical intake we do through Best Buddy and check for any edits. The program immediately tells me, for instance, if a diagnosis is inconsistent with other OASIS responses. I can get right in there and make a correction before there is any impact." I routinely run Best Buddy's cost reports and check to make sure that what we have documented in our assessment will translate into the most beneficial and cost effective care plan possible. If not, I can model different approaches and choose the one which best reflects the patient's condition and the care the patient needs. I print any edits that Best Buddy brings to my attention. Then after they're corrected, I keep these in a binder... I also use these notes in training. It's a great way to get discussions going concerning where and why certain edits appear, or why a diagnosis is invalid."

"The editing for assessment errors in Best Buddy is blatantly clear and finite. It is possible to easily see what needs to be done. Originally, these edits served as a good training tool for our data entry personnel. As a result we are seeing far fewer of those errors. Now, we are using the Clinical"

"Buddy is where it's at. I can import my data directly into Buddy from my home care software. I can compare assessments for consistency and changes. I can get a report on clinical inconsistencies. I can query the data according to any of the MO items. I can identify the CURRENT patient names who failed to improve on Outcomes vs. waiting for OBQI's 3 month old data.

This is the ONLY thing out there that gives you access to your own data without being a database whiz and it's all real-time.

The cost is around $2000 then $300/year maintenance. I have saved that much many, many times over."

"I use Buddy to evaluate ALL our OASIS prior to transmittal! The new feature that warns us to enter a code in MO245 when a Vcode is in MO230 is great. The Query function in Buddy is very helpful and quick in determining revenue at a moments notice. Buddy shows me ALL open records so none are overlooked at transmittal time."

"I love Buddy; I don't know how an agency gets by without it. We use it when we enter data, then we check for accuracy before we ever have to transmit a thing. The service and responsiveness is unbelievable. If you call, you'll get an answer."

"Buddy is well worth the money, very cost efficient. I run the program everyday, so I find out where the SCICs and PEPs are immediately. I can make sure we are claiming everything we need, and make our revenue adjustments in real time.

If Buddy enables you to catch just one new M0825 error, than you've almost paid for the whole program! Buddy allows me to quickly double check all the OASIS information our clinical staff enters daily. The clinical inconsistency and Adverse Events reports highlight the patient documents I need to review. On the spot I can pull up a patient's record and determine if, for instance, there is an error in entering the OASIS data or if there is truly an Adverse Event. If we need to make changes we can, again in real time.

I love the fact that in a few minutes of my time I can query our OASIS data in a myriad of ways. Without having to unlock any documents, I can easily pull all sorts of information, such as, 'how many patients have such and such a diagnosis' or 'how many of our patients have returned to the hospital, and why'. I can pull patients by name to study cases, I can play with the data running various scenarios, all without in any way altering the actual OASIS documents."

In minutes, Buddy enables me to double check all our OASIS documents are completed in a timely manner. I can easily track things and say, 'What ever happened to that resumption of care?' and catch the omission before it becomes an issue."