The core goals of behavioral healthcare and addiction treatment organizations tend to be the same: serve your clients, serve your staff, and secure reimbursements so that you can continue to serve. However, where an organization is in its growth can influence the specific pain points that arise to block them from achieving these goals.
For smaller organizations, the need may be to grow. For medium-sized organizations, the need is to increase their efficiency and do the most with the resources they have. And for large organizations, the need is to simplify their complexities. To accomplish their goals, behavioral healthcare and addiction treatment center owners need to look at affordable electronic health record (EHR), revenue cycle management (RCM), and patient management (PM) solutions that provide the following tools.
1. All-in-one integration
The American Medical Association’s (AMA) EHR Usability Principles include “the EHR must reduce cognitive workload.” Many organizations are still documenting some processes on paper or in multiple software solutions, creating the “Death by a Thousand Clicks.”
Make things easier and reduce staff turnover. Look at all-in-one systems and give them an EHR/PM/RCM software they want to document in.
From the unique intake and admissions evaluations and assessments, levels of care, programs, the detailed treatment plans, goals and objective tracking, the auto-scoring and monitoring of outcome measures right in the patient chart; every aspect of the clinical process in one easy workflow. At AZZLY® for example, our Integrated Care Pathways™ create a patient experience tailored to each department process from intake and admissions, clinical and medical, office operations through to billing and claims processing.
2. Automated Revenue Cycle Management
AZZLY Rize is a specialty-specific behavioral healthcare and addiction treatment all-in-one EHR/PM/RCM software. In order to help with volume of claims and remote work, we have introduced an auto-claims coding functionality for specific appointment types and for specific encounters. This allows billers to become “reviewers not doers” and reduce the time it takes to submit claims by 75%. This also allows a clinician or physician practitioner to code a claim based on the severity of the session. The AZZLY Charge Master is easily configured, and a weeks’ worth of institutional claims can be billed in 30 seconds and professional claims in 20 seconds. Our goal is to help behavioral healthcare centers treat more in their community through telehealth and get paid for the services they render. Through our claims clearinghouse, Availity®, you have access to approximately 15,000 Payer IDs. Eligibility is available through Change Healthcare®.
Incorrect coding of claims can result in a denial which costs the provider., the patient and the payer time and money. However, the auto generation of claims based on an encounter allows for provider adjustments of severity rating for more accurate coding. When an encounter is completed and signed, the coding associated with that encounter will create a service on a claim. That’s efficiency. Claims are available for review, to bundle services, and to submit to payers for those billers that like that second look. Easy. It’s time to take control of your accounts receivable!
Our client Bill Chrisovergis in Dayton, OH, experienced first-hand the difference that billing in-house could make. Prior to signing with AZZLY, Bill’s treatment organization used a third-party biller, and they had slow reimbursements. In short, he was not receiving any payments. As Bill put it, “We provided great care, we got people in the door, we did all the processes you have to do, but at the end of the day, we weren’t getting paid.”
Other than that, Bill had no experience billing, and since he was relying on an outside billing service, he had little knowledge of the status of his claims, and any delays. Using AZZLY for billing not only gave him access to a host of easy-to-use billing features, but also the hands-on support of working with AZZLY’s experienced medical billing experts to guide him through the process. In just a few weeks, Bill went from being in the blind on his claims, to handling all his own billing effortlessly. Now he is ready to add a biller and serve more individuals in need.
With all staff documentation one click away, Bill verifies his staff is in compliance before he submits the claims. Bill is a hands-on owner, but now knows what his biller will know, so he can step in at any time to make sure his process is being followed.
3. Outcome measurement tools
Standardized outcome measurement tools are required by several accreditation organizations (The Joint Commission, CARF, and COA) and payers (Cigna, Aetna, and UHC, with some states pushing for Medicare/Medicaid to require outcome measurements tools). Outcome measurement tools are the accepted standard to evaluate patient outcomes.
One AZZLY client, Bill Robbins from The Little Hill Foundation in New Jersey, added outcome measurement tools as one technological improvement to one of the oldest residential treatment organizations in the country. Bill said, “Using AZZLY as our EHR has been really helpful to bring efficiency and bring data to the ever-evolving field of addiction treatment.”
Of course, Alina Lodge’s evolution involved a lot more than just investing in a new technology solution. It meant more education, training and certification (CARF and the Joint Commission) to become more compliant and write better notes. These rigid standards aren’t just important; they’re mandatory. Proving medical necessity for services rendered is required for reimbursement.
Providers have more tools than ever to analyze outcomes data. Juggling all these forms and data points can be a time-consuming hassle. But it doesn’t have to be. All-in-one electronic health records that integrate outcome measurement tools save you time and energy by putting everything into one intuitive workflow.
AZZLY Rize™ provides a very individualized chronological medical record of each service or event provided during an episode of care.
Coletta Dorado, CEO of AZZLY shares, “ we created AZZLY Rize from the ground up to streamline workflow and simplify behavioral healthcare specific processes.” By connecting a patient’s diagnosis, to medications (if any), to labs, to their individual treatment plan, to the selected outcome measurement tool for real-time auto scoring and relative risk display, helps in adjusting the patient’s goals in the treatment plan review, to adjusting the levels of care or frequency of services offered. To further filter and show a day, a week, a month, a quarter, a year view for an easy audit, one report can be very meaningful during a UR review, a chart audit and as important when calculating the improved clinical outcomes of the population that you serve.
AZZLY Rize provides a library of evidence-based outcome measurement tools, assessments and surveys, without additional cost, fully integrated in each patient chart, for you to keep track of your patients’ outcomes, make adjustments to their treatment plan goals, and keep an eye on quantitative measures of your success.
The solution that has it all
Get a scalable solution that supports your whole team anytime, anywhere.
AZZLY Rize is a specialty-specific behavioral healthcare and addiction treatment all-in-one EHR/PM/RCM software hosted in Microsoft Azure. With staff having to work remotely, all staff in all departments who are authorized to sign in to the system are able to complete their work, including intake and admissions, office management, setting appointment reminders, telehealth appointments for check-in, auto claims billing, and billing and claims collection. Clinical and medical notes are created for all levels of care.
If you are ready to get these necessary tools, take the first step to learn more about our solution AZZLY® Rize™. Fill out this brief form, and one of our AZZLY EHR and RCM Specialists will be in touch quickly for a discovery call to better understand your needs. Additionally you’ll get to see a brief demo on your own. Visit azzly.com or email hello@azzly.com for more information.
