How Do I Choose the Right Home Care Software Vendor?

Looking for a new home care software vendor can be a complicated task—there’s no doubt about that. If you’ve already started your research, I’m sure you’ve found that the market has gotten pretty crowded with a number of vendors that all seem to be offering the same features. With the home care landscape shifting to outcome or value-based care models and new regulations and technology evolving daily, it’s important to find a solution that fits your agency’s needs, both today and in the future.

To help you figure out which home care technology is right for your business, we’ve come up with 6 questions to ask each vendor that will help you determine the significant differences in their offerings: 

1. Does your solution support the size of my home care agency?

Home care agencies vary largely in terms of size and functionality. Some agencies are smaller and don’t require enterprise-level solutions, while others could be scheduling hundreds of care workers and have much more complex considerations. It’s essential that your home care solution is flexible enough to meet your needs and can adapt to the various changes your business experiences as it grows. 

2. What are the scheduling capabilities?

For your home care agency to operate successfully, it’s critical to have a solution that can efficiently and accurately schedule client visits on a daily basis. This portion of the software solution is the one your employees will be using the most, so it’s important that they find the software easy to use and understand.

Additionally, a robust solution should be capable of handling virtually any use case you throw at it, so be sure it fully aligns with all of your business processes. 

3. Does your solution have accounting, billing and payroll functionality?

Home care agencies can often get bogged down with a constant cycle of accounting, billing and payroll processes. You want to find a home care solution that makes collecting your money and paying employees easy. Look for a system that has several options for exporting data to share with other accounting, billing and payroll systems. 

4. What methods of time tracking and caregiver accountability are supported?

Many agencies are now required to have more robust solutions for tracking visits. Ideally, your home care software solution should offer more than one method of time tracking.

Newer systems now offer GPS-enabled time and attendance as well as electronic visit verification (EVV) systems that give you more accurate schedule updates and real-time notifications of late or missed visits. When implementing an EVV solution, it is important to make sure it can be integrated into your current home care software. 

5. Does your software support third-party integrations?

In today’s home care industry, finding a solution that supports interoperability is more important than ever. It’s not uncommon to see home care agencies operating on different solutions for different business lines, and while It’s nice to imagine that a provider’s needs can be put in a neat box, the fact is that clients will float back and forth across the continuum of care, and their data should do the same.

Try to avoid closed solutions and look for cloud-based platforms equipped with truly open and restful APIs that have the ability to support third-party integrations.

6. Does your solution have a mobile app?

Mobile apps allow providers to maintain meaningful interactions with clients from anywhere, at any time. If you’re looking to deliver the home care of the future, there is no question you should look for a home care solution equipped with a mobile app. 

The bottom line is you need a vendor that adequately adapts to the individual needs of both your agency and your clients now and in the future. There are many different software products to choose from and these questions only skim the surface of the probing that should be done before selecting a vendor that’s right for your agency.

While reviewing your options can be time-consuming, be sure to take advantage of one-on-one guided demonstrations, either online or in-person, so you have the opportunity to ask questions and ensure the solution is right for accomplishing your agency goals.

The post How Do I Choose the Right Home Care Software Vendor? appeared first on AlayaCare.