Improving All Processes

In home care companies, the cost of employees completing tasks averages 53 percent of the expenses incurred. (The other 47 percent is for products.) Employee tasks are prescribed in a company's business processes. Providers may not always choose what they do, i.e. collecting CMNs, but they do choose the way employees do things.

Doing things takes time, and buying people's time takes money. In an environment that has (and for years to come will have) declining reimbursement rates, it is imperative that businesses reduce the time it takes to perform each business process.

Think of business processes as a group of activities that produce a specific result aimed at meeting the obligations of a company's stakeholders, especially customers. It is common for home care companies to have 10 to 15 processes — intake, billing and collecting, delivery, purchasing, etc.

Accredited providers describe their processes in a Policy & Procedure manual. Companies that don't have a written manual should prepare one for the sake of efficiency, if not accreditation. A detailed description of processes is the first step in improving them.

The act of improving processes is often referred to as “business process re-engineering.” BPR is not rocket science; it is artful management. The requirements are a detailed knowledge of the process, a collaborative effort in identifying speed bumps, creative solutions in removing those speed bumps and accountability in executing the changes.

Detailed knowledge of the process is best derived from the people who are closest to the process. They routinely see the documents, hear the comments on the phone, interface with the customers in their homes, use the computers and know how it feels to work on the company's front line. Collaboration with these employees will reveal what slows them down, as well as changes that need to be made for better efficiency.

Once solutions have been identified, accountability for their implementation must be clear. Managers who develop improvement plans through collaborative efforts and don't hold themselves and their reports accountable for executing changes will see conditions deteriorate.