Jacqueline Ralph-Blair wasn’t just looking to the next few quarters when she decided to outsource intake services. She was looking at the next three quarters of a century.
“For our 2024 strategic plan, we had to focus on how to be sustainable and have a sustainable foundation to be here for the next 75 years,” says Ralph-Blair, Chief Innovation Officer of Visiting Nurse Health System, the Atlanta-based non-profit provider of home-based care services. VNHS has experienced all of the pressures facing the home-based care industry, from increased labor costs to staffing constraints to the high cost of turnover and its impact on care quality.
VNHS offsets those constraints by recruiting and retaining top talent while also embracing third-party services.
“This meant being extremely tactical in who we were choosing to be our external partners,” she says. “Homecare Homebase has been that invaluable partner with Visiting Nurse Health System. They really hear our pain points and create solutions to address our concerns in trailblazing ways. We consider the Homecare Homebase team an active ally.”
VNHS worked with HCHB to centralize its intake process. The results have been dynamic. Here is a look at three powerful stats that show the ROI of outsourcing — as well as three tips for success.
1. 12.5% cost savings within the first year of centralizing intake
Care delivery is a mission-driven business but it is also just that: a business. If the underlying business struggles, care delivery does too. That’s what makes VNHS’ partnership with HCHB so important. After bringing on HCHB’s Revenue Cycle and Authorization Services, VNHS agreed to partner with HCHB to outsource their intake process as well. The intake centralization has allowed the provider to save 12.5% in the first year alone.
“The cost associated with outsourcing is expected to be even further offset as we continue to scale,” Ralph-Blair says. “Remember, we’re a moderate-sized organization, we want to be positioned for scale.” It’s important to ask: “How do we offset those administrative costs and pressures?”
HCHB handles VNHS’ non-admissions for consistency and standardizations, meaning they now have great trackability for those non-admits to better utilize data to examine other opportunities. Centralization gives the team the flexibility needed to be more innovative and more bullish with their risks, Ralph-Blair says.
“We’ve been open now to trying new things like HCHB Smart Scheduling, which really helps us avoid those missed visits and late-day scheduling problems for our clinicians,” she says. “We were able to launch that this year — with a really solid implementation in our intake department.”
By streamlining their intake process and using Smart Scheduling, VNHS has freed up their clinical managers, giving them more time to focus on their clinicians, which in turn helps clinicians do what they do best: deliver care.
2. 87% of VNHS clinicians felt that they were supported
The results are powerful. At a time when burnout is driving staffing shortages, clinician satisfaction is a game-changer.
“After adopting Smart Scheduling, we were able to see some really favorable results: 87% of our clinicians felt that they were supported and that they had the tools needed for success in our post-implementation survey,” Ralph-Blair says.
3. 8% decline in nursing turnover
Not surprisingly, VNHS is now seeing a decline in nursing turnover. This drives better care outcomes.
“We were able to develop a streamlined process where we work directly with the VNHS sales team as if we were part of their staff,” says Joyce Osborne, Director of Clinical Operations at HCHB. “We receive their referrals. If the referrals are complete, our goal is to get them processed and on to the HCHB Authorization services team—within an hour from the time that referral was received.”
3 tips for operator success in outsourcing
For operators getting started in their outsourcing journey, Ralph-Blair offers three tips for success.
- Take a phased approach. “Know your organization,” she says. “Don’t bite off more than you can chew. We rolled it out in phases, and we did stop-checks to make sure that we were cementing those concepts before we moved forward.”
- Communicate often. “There is no limit to communication,” she says. “We communicate often, whether structured or unstructured. Find that appropriate cadence.”
- Treat your technology partner as part of your team. Like Osborne noted, HCHB works with VNHS as if they were part of their staff. It’s a feeling that is reciprocated.
“We absolutely treat each other as one company,” Ralph-Blair says. “Homecare Homebase, for us, is a part of our team, a part of our family, and there is extensive transparency—so much so that everyone across the board is vested. Who you outsource with is just as important as what service you choose to outsource. There is just so much tech enablement out there that requires due diligence. Equal due diligence should be vested in those external organizations as well. We’ve just really found a collaborative, true partner with Homecare Homebase.”
HCHB delivers powerful new tools and intuitive software that’s easy to learn and use. From scheduling, routing, patient notes and reporting to intake, approvals, billing, compliance and payment, we give you everything you need to boost productivity and profits while empowering exceptional patient care. To learn more, visit hchb.com.
