Hi, M!

I did want to provide a recap on our last meeting of September 9 which was essentially a debriefing of the results from putting the most representative and basic scenarios typical to the Agency through Therapist Helper in a systematic way.

My brief summary is that while Agency staff felt that running the tests were very helpful, the process tended to raise many more questions and "what-if's" that needed to be answered.

Some observations, issues, questions that came up during the testing:

1. Currently a 'no show' is a hassle because we have to change the Face Sheet? (Jeanne's comment - can a "no show" be set up in the services library and assigned when the patient doesn't show up?)

2. How can you change a service to a client without messing with the defaults set up in the client's face sheet?  (Jeanne's comment - check out that online training video or call TH technical support because I seem to recall that being mentioned and believe that it is possible.)

3. It might be best to wait til the end of the day to actually check in new people or the first transaction might be messed up because of a different mop (method of payment)? (Jeanne's comment - I believe J or D or M mentioned that a transaction can be backed out and re-entered. This might be another good question for TH technical support.)

4. Staff concluded that it is probably best to have a "standard," a "DFC rate," and a "IVB rate" version of the same service in the library but to handle the sliding fee scale as an adjustment in the Client's Face Sheet.

5. Following along with item 4, Mn will redesign the fee schedule so that it calls things what they really are and doesn't equate "apples with oranges," or rates with agencies and programs. (Jeanne's comment - did I get that right, M?)

6. Following along with item 4, SAFTIP (Sex Abuse Family Treatment Intervention Program) is used as a generic term for various sex offender programs such as SOMM (Sex Offender Management and Monitor), SOS victems, the SAFTIP IVB group, the adult self pay group, and adolescent offenders. In addition SOS serves a group which is not included under SAFTIP. the perpetrators. SOMM provides three services and Liberty Behavioral Health pays for these. (Jeanne's comment - did I get this right, everyone?)

7. Which is best - to set up methods of payment as insurance or as responsible parties? (Jeanne's comment - another good question for the vendor. This terminology has the potential to be a bit confusing when you talk to TH tech support as mops also refers to cash, check, and credit card?)

8. Applying DFC payments back individually in TH would be a terribly time-consuming process. (Jeanne's comment - this is a pretty critical issue and I'm so glad you all brought it up. How does the process of how you apply payments back now - with the A/R cards, I assume, compare to how you would have to do it in Therapist Helper? We need to take a hard look at this. Possibly this is where you might need a little customization to TH.)

Things to do before next meeting

1. Staff felt that it would be helpful to develop more complex scenarios and run them through Therapist Helper to answer many of the what-if's that came up during the initial testing.

2. Staff will kill two birds with one stone by entering more of the simple scenarios into Therapist Helper, but in a real life time frame - allowing the appropriate time to lapse between events such as scheduling, check-in, and billing. This 'situated' approach is good because it will likely cause you to think of things that may get otherwise overlooked and will also allow you to build up a 'mass' of data with which to generate your DFC billing and various TH reports.

4. Staff will try to do a DFC billing, an SOM, billing, and an SOS billing.

5. The things that you learn during these weeks of testing will form the basis for help documents and job aids. Please write down your discoveries and 'recipes' so that they can be included when the time comes to develop formal help documentation and job aids.

6. From the testing, come up with a list of questions for the vendor - M will try to arrange a conference call. (Where are TH physically located and do they have branch offices?) (Jeanne's comment - I will try to research this on the web and get back to you before Thursday.)