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Project Proposal for Implementation of Therapist Helper  

Problem statement:

A manager purchased Therapist Assistant about a year ago and recently left the organization. The scheduling component is up and running pretty well, except for a rather awkward or slow method of generating appointment calling/confirmation lists. Also the staff would like the report to flag first-time customers.

However, the other features are not yet being used nor do staff really understand what the software is capable of. From my visit to the website and downloading of the demo version - Therapist Helper is a complete - and mostly - a billing and scheduling system. It can be single user or multiple user with different protections and access assigned. There is an export button on every screen that allows export to excel. The documentation is kind of sparse and I'm not sure at this point whether the version on the web is more complete or whether that's the version the office possesses was printed off the web. As stated above, scheduling is up and running, however, the information that allows the system to generate bills etc. for each patient is not being input, therefore, there's no output.

Staff would like to get the billing portion of Therapist Helper up and running, if feasible. Staff would like to know if/how the software handles sliding fee scales (and group fees?) and whether it can accommodate the various sources of payment available to them - various grants, medicare, patient insurance, and patient portion. They would like to know how the software handles insurance deductibles and would like a screen that shows them clearly the patient balance owed as well as the total amount owed. They would like to export billing data to excel so that they can create the bills on various agencie's forms - assuming the software doesn't adequately allow them to create different billing forms.

A majority of business takes place at another site which uses different software for scheduling which is also apparently capable of billing, however not used because of certain inaccuracies detected with the software. This paperwork from this site is forwarded to Agency to enter and bill along with Agency's charges.

The biggest bill goes to DFC monthly and can be over 100 pages in length.

Proposal:

We should approach this as if we were evaluating Therapist Helper - at least the billing portion (even though we really already have purchased it and plan to use it - that fact gives us a unique opportunity to experiment hands on and not take some sales rep's word for how well it will work for us). We probably may need to contact the company during this period to see if we can use their demo download on a local machine so that we don't have to experiment with a live system - and to see how well their customer support works. The phase of the project will include two tasks:

1. Identifying each step of the cycle from patient intake to final billing, receipt of payments and other accounting tasks. (I would estimate that this would take 2 to 4 hours and would require input from Agency staff).

2. Creating and designing a group of cases/patients and tracking them through the system - including what data needs to be captured at each step of the cycle talked about in 1. and who will be capturing or entering the data. (I would recommend the cases cover the most representative and greatest bulk or volume of scenarios you would encounter - we can worry about the extremes or oddities later).

    a.    Creating the cases should probably take 2 to 5 hours and will require input from Agency staff.

    b.    Tracking the cases would probably take 1 to three days and will require involvement of key Agency staff.

After we have completed this process we should have gained quite a bit of knowledge and can decide where we need to go from there.

The issues of implementing different levels of access and security should be treated as a separate problem and approached at a later date? The networked version of this software does have that capability.

Also the issue of the separate site using different software should be treated as a separate problem which we may want to take a look at - whether we want to run their data through therapist helper's billing features - or enter it directly into an excel spreadsheet - or better yet, get an electronic version that could be imported into whatever we want from the remote site - that is if they have already entered most of the data.

Finally the issue of training and designing some job aids for people using the system may be something you want to look at - in addition to the help, training, and documentation offered by the vendor - again this is something that we can do at a later date.

 

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Notes to myself used to generate the propsal:

Things I have learned so far from our visit, Therapist Helper's website, and downloading their demo version to my machine at home:

1. There's an export to excel buttom on almost every page.

2. The libraries are pre-defined - you cannot create new ones or add your own.

3. The software comes preloaded with cpt code and diagnosis code databases.

4. The software is primarily intended to handle accounting and billing as well as scheduling.

5. The software does allow levels of access and software protection.

6. The vendor offers other products that go along with Therapist Helper.

 
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, July 16, 2004 2:11 AM Subject: Fw: Chewing on Agency Project

What needs to be done?

How long will it take?

What do I know and understand about the project?

Well, as I understand it, a manager purchased Therapist Assistant about a year ago and recently left the organization. The scheduling component is up and running and I guess that part is working pretty well.

However, the other features are not yet being used nor do staff really understand what the software is capable of. From my visit to the website and downloading of the demo version - Therapist Helper is a complete - and mostly - a billing and scheduling system. It can be single user or multiple user with different protections and access assigned. There is an export button on every screen that allows export to excel. The documentation is kind of sparse and I'm not sure at this point whether the version on the web is more complete or whether that's the version the office possesses was printed off the web. The scheduling is up and running, however, the information that allows the system to generate bills etc. for each patient is not being input, therefore, there's no output. Seems like they just need help breaking down the problem - and I'm not sure what parts of this thing will be done by whom (including me). Oh, there is a report that would make scheduling easier - staff needs a report that will spill out patients that need to be called to confirm appointments each day - and they would like for the system to flag the new patients.

idea - install the demo version on Client's computers just so they can experiment with it and get to know it? How busy is are they and how much time do they have to devote to 'playing' with it? Will the software company let us do this?

The manager that left started setting up the libraries. I propose that we develop a test plan to encompass the usual scenarios and track them through the system - set up some imaginary patients and take them through the whole cycle from making the appointment to billing. Treat this thing initially like an evaluation package which you get to try out first hand! Contact the company and see if they will let you have the demo version for more than fifteen tries. In any case contact the company and see what they can do to help. Okay. How do we develop a test plan? What does that involve?

Come up with representative cases - I can go through the detailed information presented and make some suggestions. Identify the parts of the entire cycle - I'll need help with that and decide who is going to do them. Talk to the company if need be to get a demo version. Do a Richard Ruh and develop a list of questions you want answered about the software - recognizing that new questions may arise as you get into the evalution.

Oh, a greater volume of the business takes place at another location which uses another piece of software - I'll have to look up what it is - apparently they are not using it for billing because it's not very accurate. So all the paper work is re-entered at the admin office and the billing is done there. So taking a look at that other software package may be helpful - that would be another component of the project.

May be helpful to my main contact whom I have worked with before if you point out how this project is similar and different from Dataflow and other projects we've each been involved with.

Representative cases - the agency or office has several funding sources - or I suppose the patients do. They also have a sliding fee scale - which I guess they want to know if the software can handle - I need to check that out.

Anyway - the agency has several grants available to them which pick up some or all charges for certain patients and then there is private pay - the patient's portion, medicare, and insurance - so theoretically a bill could be partially paid for by a grant, insurance, and the balance by the patient. Staff would like to be able to get a report or screen that can tell the patient the portion that they owe - as well as total balance owed.

Talk to the company - get a demo version to play with.

Design a set of test data to include the most representative cases

Take these patients through the entire billing cycle - identify each step of the cycle from initial contact to final payment and needed reports. Identify what info is required to enter into the computer or be in the computer for each step and who will do the entry and then ... execute the plan.

Take a look at the remote site's software and what can be done to facilitate and eliminate double data entry at the two sites.

Take a look at what the company offers in the way of support and training and what kind of job aids people will need.