The Right Software System is Almost Like Getting Another Income Stream

Organizations and their executives serving the needs of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) have many compelling reasons to implement a good software solution  — efficient data capture, data retrieval, and secure communication among them. 

What makes a good software solution even better is the substantial savings that come along with it. Not only can organizations provide better services at a higher level, but also the improved quality pairs with lower operating costs. 

Let’s look at some of the ways these savings come about. 

Mileage

Meeting the mileage and travel calculation needs of clients and organizations requires more than calculating simple mileage between visits. iCareManager’s Mileage Rectifier can be used to add sets of rules to the mileage totals so that the calculations are extremely accurate, and no mileage increments fall through the cracks. The rules, and their combinations, are virtually unlimited in flexibility and include the ability to calculate mileage based on the GPS pings of a mobile device.

Paper

Going paperless saves money in paper costs. It also saves additional costs in ink and toner, and in-office or off-site storage space for paper records, security for that storage, and eventual secure disposal or destruction of these sensitive documents. Plus, the records in an EHR system are accessible in the cloud and are securely stored and backed up. While server space is a consideration, it’s a minuscule cost compared to physical storage and management of massive amounts of paper records.

Automation

iCareManager can significantly reduce the amount of time you spend managing your staff. It does this by automating administrative tasks such as daily support logs, trainings, schedules, distribution of best practices and SOPs, as well as automating timecards, setting up permissions, reminders, calendars, and more. Over time, instead of hiring more administrative staff to take care of these formerly time-consuming tasks, you can allow computers to do what they do best — automation — and humans to do what they do best: providing care and leadership. That saves money and allocates resources to provide better service. Of course, there’s another level on which these savings also accumulate — staff members see a reduction in the amount of time spent managing their tasks. 

Errors

The costs of errors can include under billing, overbilling which must be corrected, incorrect tracking of mileage, mistakes in staff hours and payment, lost prescriptions, inaccuracies in inventory, and the potential medical or catastrophic legal costs of a serious error in support. A good EHR suite of tools such as iCareManager reduces every class of these errors through automation of tedious tasks that computers do perfectly, and through making data and records easily visible so that human judgments and choices with the data are sound. Fewer errors mean more money saved. 

Compliance 

Real-time compliance saves you money from audits. A good software solution employs notifications and alerts to keep you on top of all the data you need to provide. It also keeps you aware of any critical oversights, so that you can correct them in real-time, reducing the costs of audits. Built-in workflows even help you to automate corrective actions to achieve and maintain compliance. All of which saves time, tedium, and the sometimes large expense of key administrative or executive staff having to deal with a complex audit.

Captured billable time

Instantly, accurately, and fully capturing billable hours saves money.  By making it easy for staff to input hours and accurately calculate them instantly, iCareManager makes sure your organization receives all of what it is due.   

Uncaptured overhead expenses

Small and large overhead expenses add up. Without a good EHR system, it’s not easy to capture them all, view them, or rapidly report them. But with a good software system, the work of capturing,  calculating, and reporting overhead expenses becomes rapid and accurate. That means more accurate accounting and funding. 

The cost savings don’t stop with this list, of course. But the point is already made: cost savings directly attributable to a good suite of software often enable organizations serving the needs of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (IDD) to witness cost savings which more than pay for the cost of the software, month after month.