Keeping Tabs

A critical aspect of managing a successful home care business is knowing the quantity and quality of work being performed by your staff. This information is key in determining the efficiency and effectiveness of the employees, and in making informed decisions regarding staffing needs.

Your software system can be a primary tool in monitoring and measuring performance, allowing you to collect the data you need to know to meet your goals. Armed with the right information, you can improve productivity, increase cash collections and reduce bad debt. In other words, you can lead your company to greater profitability.

Setting Goals

In order to obtain maximum results, goals should be established for each employee as well as for individual departments and the company as a whole. When establishing goals, be sure that they are realistic and obtainable. Communicate performance expectations to your staff. Your goals should be measured objectively using data that can be collected efficiently. The structure and design of your business office, as well as the capabilities of your business software, will greatly impact your ability to collect and compile this data.

It is quite possible that you may have to review and reengineer certain areas of your business before you can establish accountability. Fragmentation of workflow often makes it impossible to hold employees accountable for their individual performance.

For example, if one person is responsible for checking a pre-billing edit report, another is responsible for preparing and sending out claims and still another is responsible for accounts receivable follow-up, which employee do you hold accountable if the claim is still unpaid after six months? Two out of the three employees may be performing their jobs flawlessly; there is no way to tell.

It is important to consider your software system's capabilities before you undertake a reengineering of business processes. Your system might not have a pre-billing edit that can be used to check claims before they are printed and the A/R is posted. The quality assurance function might be performed after the claims have been produced, or your system may have certain limitations on the way that you can report revenue or A/R.

Does your system provide you with a method of tracking cash collected by an employee? Perhaps it does, but you aren't aware of how it works. Knowing your software's capabilities when you redesign your processes will insure the most effective results.