Spend less time on paperwork, billing and more time on home infusion patient care

October 25, 2022

AlayaCare

Demand for home infusion pharmacy services is booming, with several more years of sustained growth forecasted. This is a landmark opportunity for the industry to continue its transformation to incorporate more Hospital-at-Home care. In this model, healthcare providers can deliver hospital-level care in the comfort of a patient’s home. Like many other industries, however, the specialty pharmacy nursing network has been seriously impacted by labor shortages that are predicted to persist.

While many nursing agencies are taking advantage of this burgeoning demand to expand their businesses by becoming preferred referral partners for specialty pharmacies, others feel more hesitant. Many are facing critical staff shortages – with 40% of respondents surveyed in a recent joint report by Home Health Care News and AlayaCare sharing that they’ve increased their reliance on contract labor out of necessity.

While an immediate end to our industry’s labor shortage doesn’t appear to be in sight, agencies looking to enter the infusion pharmacy subcontracting market can find a way to do more with less – by embracing technology.

Centralizing home infusion operations

Home infusion is an information-intensive industry. And many subcontracting nursing agencies spend hours per day transcribing information between phone calls, emails, and a patchwork of software applications to track critical patient and provider details. Not only is this tedious for staff, but it eats up hours of their time that could instead be spent seeing more patients, improving operational efficiency, or even getting paid faster.

With the right system in place, designed for the specialty pharmacy nursing network and the agencies who subcontract for them, home infusion providers can do more with less.

With a comprehensive set of tools to streamline communication, operations, patient care, and billing, AlayaCare supports not only the industry’s leading specialty pharmacy nursing networks like Option Care Health and NuFactor but also the subcontractors who work with them like Tri-State Infusion Nursing, Professional Home Infusion and A&G Infusion Services.

This is how they’re using AlayaCare to spend less time on billing and paperwork and more time on patient care so they can leverage the growing home infusion market to become subcontracting nursing agencies of choice.

Improving efficiency with real-time field visibility

When it comes to building relationships with specialty pharmacy providers, trust and transparency are essential. And it’s not something you can easily offer when care is facilitated through a mix of 4 separate software applications, paper notes, and Google Drive. Making the switch to an all-in-one cloud-based platform like AlayaCare provides you with the tools you need to become a preferred subcontracting partner for specialty pharmacy agencies like Option Care Health.

And what kind of visibility are they looking for? Joan Couden, VP of Nursing at Option Care Health, shares,

“The technology allows us to focus on providing care in the most efficient way possible. We can ensure we are matching the right nurse to the right patient all with a click of a button, helping to minimize travel time and increase the patient-facing time.”

To not only deliver better outcomes to home infusion patients but prove that you’re doing so, AlayaCare offers nursing agencies features that allow you to record, track and share real-time information about patients and their caregivers that build trust and lay the foundation for long-term subcontracting relationships – without the paperwork.

Providing the custom forms needed for home infusion operations

Positioning your agency as a preferred home infusion subcontractor isn’t just about delivering the best outcomes, but making it easy for you and the referring specialty pharmacy to communicate securely about patient charting, drug orders, and nurse notes.

Sharon Mitchell, Owner of Tri-State Infusion Nursing, chose AlayaCare as their technology for this very reason. She describes,

“The specialty pharmacies each require a different set of paperwork. With AlayaCare, we can create a template and give them the paperwork the pharmacy requires. The nurses can document there, print it out, and fax it over to the specialty pharmacy – and it looks exactly the way they expect it to be.”

Because AlayaCare’s home infusion platform was designed for both specialty pharmacies and their subcontractors, you can not only create custom forms that capture everything you need to plan and document every visit but even upload the original version of the pharmacy’s preferred form to your system. And better yet? You can provide these forms directly to your nurses via the AlayaCare mobile app. You’ll save time for your staff and streamline the pharmacy’s workload with every visit.

Minimizing the time it takes to get paid by pharmacies

Getting reimbursed in the infusion pharmacy subcontracting industry can be tricky. Before you can get paid, the specialty pharmacy must receive all the proper documentation from your agency, submit it to the patient’s insurance company and then respond to any additional requests for reports or documentation. The key to getting paid faster is giving the needed information to the specialty quickly and accurately to avoid any other requests.

At Professional Home Infusion, Director of Nursing Ana Carolina Sachs has seen a significant boon in billing turnaround with AlayaCare. She notes,

“When the nurses see patients, they can literally finish their notes at that moment and then send [them] to me. Then I can turn around and bill [to the specialty pharmacy] at the same time. The virtual experience allows me to see any changes in patient status, any reactions that need to be reported, bill immediately, and free up the nurses so much faster.”

When it comes to home infusion billing, speed and accuracy are essential. And AlayaCare enables nursing agencies to improve their revenue cycle management and get paid faster with billing workflows designed for the home infusion industry.

Seize your opportunity to become a preferred supplier with technology

The landmark growth in the home infusion industry is a massive opportunity for nursing agencies that can leverage their strengths to start or grow their subcontracting business. While, like most home-based care providers, you may be feeling the strain of staff shortages – this isn’t a reason to pass up the chance to expand your contacts and drive new business lines.

Enterprise pharmacies and subcontractors use AlayaCare to offer better patient outcomes and better work experiences for nurses with configurable forms, real-time documentation, a dynamic mobile app, and a robust back office suite. And when it comes to picking a referral partner, specialty pharmacies want to work with agencies that operate just as efficiently as they do.

Don’t let a patchwork system of applications or tedious processes slow your business down. Take advantage of this market opportunity by switching to a software platform that will save you time and money while giving you visibility in your field operations.

Ready to explore how home infusion software can transform your agency?

Curious about how else you can position your agency to win referrals from top specialty pharmacies?

We spoke to our leading enterprise-level customers to get their insights.