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Like a brass band, technology has marched into the therapy arena trumpeting a change in the tempo of therapy. Gone are the hours of repetitive paperwork and errors in record keeping. The new tune has the snappy, key-clicking rhythm of the computer. It frees therapists for more hands-on treatment time, speeds billing, ensures accuracy, and provides a wealth of aggregate data for reports on residents and trends.

What does this technology mean to the nursing home? "Most facilities shop for therapy on the basis of price and service," says Jeff Boland, a consultant with KPMG Senior Living Services. "Technology factors into that because the more sophisticated a therapy company is in terms of how it collects data and transmits them to the billing staff, the more time it can save the client."

Long-term care has traditionally been a bit timid in climbing aboard the silver streak of technology. "Many times a facility will say, 'Oh, it's some sort of whiz-bang technology thing that I don't understand, and I can't imagine it has value for me,'" says Sandro Grima, vice-president of information technology at Aegis Therapies. "But once they see the results technology can deliver, they become very enthusiastic."

Here is a brief tour of what a therapy company's technology should deliver and why evaluating technologic capabilities is important in choosing a therapy company.

Managing the Paper Trail

It's the end of the month and the therapist is adding up units and minutes of treatment for her residents, endlessly writing the resident's name, Medicare number, and all the other resident information on each form. She makes an error and has to turn the 9 into a 7, hoping it will be legible. Although she is a skilled therapist, much of her time is spent on paperwork--and that paperwork is subject to human error.

"Anyone who has had to review handwritten documentation--especially copies of copies of faxes--knows that what those reviewers at Medicare have to look at is just scary," says Bill Goulding, director of outcomes and appeals management for Aegis Therapies. "It's a wonder that they go to the trouble to decipher what the therapist writes."

From the moment the resident is admitted, technology should become the therapist's partner, storing information in a Web-based system and delivering it at the click of a key from any computer with the proper security passwords. Need to fill in resident information, medical information, and payer information on a form? That information, along with CPT codes and care plans, should automatically appear every time the resident's file is opened. The therapist need only enter treatment quantity and time. "The system actually prevents therapists from keying information if it doesn't fit the regulations," says Grima. "That's a huge safety factor for denials." Added benefit: The computer delivers a crisply printed, totally legible log.

"Technology makes clinical care better, easier, and more accurate," says Deb Neil, district manager for Aegis. "We used to have to sit down and fill out two logs for every resident every day. Now the computer actually creates the second log. It allows the manager to track resident care time on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. We can compare numbers of residents in a time frame and calculate our utilization percentages."

An "e-signature," created when the therapist logs onto the file and certifies the information is correct, protects the integrity of the resident's file. "The system will not allow those records to be changed," says Grima. "That e-signature is as good as the day it was put in."

Once therapists become acquainted with the system, it takes less time to capture their treatment data electronically than it did on paper, which means they can dedicate their time to what they do best--treating residents.

Delivering Oh-so-Accurate E-billing

After using technology to create the resident record, the next step is to transmit it electronically to the facility. Robert Campion, executive director at Heritage Square Healthcare Center in Greendale, Wisconsin, remembers when billing for therapy meant delivering the therapists' handwritten billing logs to a receptionist who would work on them at night. "In between answering the phone and greeting people as they came in the door, she was logging in Medicare billing," he recalls. "Obviously, there were issues of accuracy."

With 21st-century technology, such scenarios have gone the way of the woolly mammoth. No longer must human hands labor to transfer information from one computer to another. A computer interface makes it possible to send electronic files that download directly into the receiving computer. "The ability of the therapy company to feed directly into the facility's billing system without human intervention has really helped our compliance," says Campion. "If there are errors in terms of entering, they are easy to correct, and the system leaves a trail easy to track. From a compliance standpoint, that's huge."

# posted by Medical Information : 2:45 AM