Adult Specialty Skilled Nursing Programs
HHCA has created educational programs specific to the five most common diagnostic reasons the Company admitted patients to service. These programs, with input and oversight from the Company's Corporate Medical Director, were designed to provide clinical staff with state-of-the-art information that allows them to be proficient in the art of disease management.
HHCA's adult specialty skilled nursing programs focus on patient care for the following disease processes:
- Diabetes
- Cardiovascular
- Pulmonary
- Orthopedic
- Renal Disease
HHCA plans to develop additional clinical programs in the areas of Wound Care, Psychiatric Disorders Related to the Elderly and Immune System Disorders.
The Company requires its full-time and per diem staff to attend skills days and continuous education programs 12 times per year.
Management Information Systems
One of the main challenges for Medicare certified home care agencies since the implementation of the PPS system has been management information systems. In addition to the challenge of learning to operate successfully within a fixed episodic payment environment, home health agencies were forced to implement new operating, billing and collection systems since those that were previously utilized in the cost reimbursed environment could no longer be used.
HHCA developed its own proprietary Pay/Bill system to integrate all business processes required for effective management of its home care business. The Pay/Bill system was designed with significant input from HHCA clinical management and staff, and incorporated the best practices from HHCA and from the industry. The functionality of the Pay/Bill system includes patient tracking, scheduling, care planning, payroll, billing, and human resource management.
The goals of the system design were to effectively and efficiently process home care transaction data and to provide timely, accurate information to management. In practice, the Pay/Bill system enables HHCA clinicians to create plans of treatment, track patient progress and monitor utilization. As an example, daily and weekly data is provided to management that shows actual patient utilization compared to the established plan of care. This type of data enables clinical management to react to changes in patient condition and variances in utilization patterns. This information is available by patient, by clinical supervisor and by office, in detail and in summary formats.
HHCA believes that its Pay/Bill System is second to none. HHCA staff report that the system is user-friendly and easy to learn. Its implementation would provide data that would benefit any home health agency. It is one of the three main reasons (effective management and high quality clinical service are the others) why HHCA has succeeded in this most difficult home care environment.
