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Home-Based Post–Acute Care 2022
Top Challenges in the Aftermath of the Pandemic
Author
Paul Hess
Author
Paul Warburton
Author
Cimone Smith
The homecare market has surged as healthcare organizations have sought to maintain quality patient care throughout the pandemic and fulfill requirements for value-based reimbursement. Organizations are looking to expand their homecare offerings; however, the pandemic has exacerbated staffing shortages and decreased bandwidth, making operations—let alone growth—difficult. To help organizations understand how peers are approaching the current environment, KLAS interviewed 88 leaders from home-based care organizations regarding the top challenges they face and the technology vendors they use or have considered investing in to address these challenges.
To read about the most common hurdles facility-based post–acute care
organizations encounter and how they are being addressed, click here.
Respondents Look to EMRs & Regulatory-Compliance Technology to Address Top Challenges
Staffing is the number-one challenge respondents report facing today. Many factors contribute to current staffing shortages, including difficult work environments and burnout. Respondents hope to retain staff by enhancing documentation, technology, and training. Some are also looking to leverage online recruiting tools. Second to staffing are concerns about regulatory requirements and changing reimbursement—both of which increase documentation complexity and potentially increase burnout. For redress, respondents are considering EMRs, regulatory-compliance technology, and revenue cycle services—see below for details.
Note: Visit the following links for performance data on Homecare Homebase, MatrixCare, and Waystar.
MatrixCare, SHP, Netsmart, and WellSky Most Commonly Deployed to Address Top Challenges
Most respondents are looking to address top challenges by leveraging technology that will streamline internal processes (e.g., clinician workflows, rejections, automated EVV). Respondents typically evaluate their EMRs first for additional optimization and functionality; as a result, EMR vendors MatrixCare, Netsmart, and WellSky are among the most commonly utilized. MatrixCare customers value the product’s ease of use and regular enhancements. Satisfaction with Netsmart’s go-forward solution, myUnity Enterprise, is mixed—many customers are awaiting additional workflow enhancements. WellSky customers say the revenue cycle tools facilitate efficient processes. Homecare Homebase is also frequently considered or deployed to improve complex documentation. The product meets a broad range of needs, especially around keeping customers compliant with revenue cycle regulations. Customers are waiting for the vendor to further enhance workflows. SHP is the most frequently utilized non-EMR vendor in this report sample. They offer a broad suite of solutions, including analytics and satisfaction surveys. Finally, multiple respondents utilize Forcura; respondents say the document management solution interfaces with their EMR and provides communication and documentation tools.
Respondents Often Consider Investing in New EMR to Improve Documentation Workflows
Due to resource constraints, only one-fifth of respondents are considering investing in additional technology to address their top challenges. They are most likely to invest in a new EMR; KLAS’ broader research in this market shows that 28% of home-based post–acute care organizations (up from 18% in 2019) regret purchasing their current EMR solution or don’t consider it to be part of their long-term plans. Looking to simplify complex documentation workflows and increase efficiency, organizations mention considering Epic, Homecare Homebase, MatrixCare, and WellSky. To address other common challenges, respondents mention considering a variety of vendors, including Workforce.com and CareXM (staffing), Vivify Health and MatrixCare (patient experience), Health Recovery Solutions and Ushur (telehealth), and Bamboo Health and Salesforce (transitions of care).
Other Mentioned Vendors: TigerConnect, VoiceFriend & WorldView Seen as Offering Innovative Solutions to Key Challenges
The following non-EMR vendors were mentioned less frequently than the vendors discussed above (i.e., by just two respondents each), but respondents who mentioned them say their solutions can be innovatively leveraged to address top challenges in home-based care.
TigerConnect: Establishing Constant Communication
TigerConnect offers communication tools that connect clinicians and patients and that help customers with internal processes like scheduling. Respondents hope the tool can help alleviate burdens around staffing.
“We leverage the platform to communicate with people out in the field; it helps us stay in contact with clinicians.” —Home health manager
VoiceFriend: Improving Workflows with Timely Communication
VoiceFriend offers a communications solution that can be used for multiple purposes. It can send alerts, allow communication with patients, and improve internal processes. Respondents hope the tool can help increase staff retention rates by helping clinicians use their time more effectively and improve patient care.
“VoiceFriend is who we have to depend on in the future to meet all the requirements, whether they are for regulatory help, reimbursement, or staffing. Anything that helps our staff be more efficient so that they waste less brainpower on things that are not important, like tracking people down or sending reminders, increases our staff satisfaction and is critical in surviving this staffing shortage. I wish all the vendors I worked with were as savvy as VoiceFriend, who seems to still be small enough to change and grow with our needs.” —Executive director of homecare
WorldView: Streamlining Document Routing for Management
WorldView is a document management solution that is intended to help staff deal with administrative tasks, like managing faxes. One benefit of the solution is it can interface with an organization’s EMR and allow users to attach referral information and wound documentation to patient records.
“We use a product called WorldView, which is pretty good. It acts as our fax portal for when referrals and signed orders come through. WorldView interfaces with our EMR to upload documents instead of our staff having to upload documents into the EMR themselves.” —VP of home health
About This Report
Each year, KLAS interviews thousands of healthcare professionals about the IT solutions and services their organizations use. KLAS’ standard quantitative evaluations for healthcare software and services are composed of numeric ratings questions and yes/no questions, all weighted equally. Combined, the ratings for these questions make up the overall performance score, which is measured on a 100-point scale. These standard ratings are available on the KLAS website.
For this study, KLAS used a supplemental evaluation to interview 88 leaders from home-based care organizations about the following: (1) what their top three challenges are and (2) which vendors’ technology they are using or considering using to address those challenges. The data was collected over the last 12 months.
Data Appendix
Writer
Sarah Brown
Designer
Jessica Bonnett
Project Manager
Andrew Wright
This material is copyrighted. Any organization gaining unauthorized access to this report will be liable to compensate KLAS for the full retail price. Please see the KLAS DATA USE POLICY for information regarding use of this report. © 2024 KLAS Research, LLC. All Rights Reserved. NOTE: Performance scores may change significantly when including newly interviewed provider organizations, especially when added to a smaller sample size like in emerging markets with a small number of live clients. The findings presented are not meant to be conclusive data for an entire client base.