While the demand for home care is growing, the availability of in-home caregivers is declining, eventually leading to a grave labor shortage: this will be an ongoing challenge to home care agencies for at least a while.
According to PHI National, there will be a shortage of 151,000 caregivers by 2030, which will increase to 355,000 by 2040.
Home care agencies typically spend most of their revenue on employee wages, most of which is for on-field caregivers providing client care.
As you may have guessed, the optimal use of caregivers directly improves the bottom line for home care agencies. To facilitate this, agencies should leverage home care scheduling software to do more with less; to meet the demand for home-based services and continue to grow.
Here are some homecare scheduling software features that improve scheduling efficiency and employee productivity, optimize cost, and improve the agency’s bottom line:
Such software matches client preferences with caregiver skills, distance, availability, etc., and provides a list of matching caregivers to the scheduler for an open schedule.
Having a list of available and matching caregivers helps the schedulers fill open shifts quickly and efficiently, reducing uncovered shifts and improving the bottom line.
This feature is essential to improve the efficiency and productivity of schedulers. Schedulers’ ability to view all open shifts or visits on one screen, match available caregivers with clients, and schedule the caregivers on the same screen improves the productivity of schedulers.
Providing multiple scheduling views and the ability to switch from one view to another helps schedulers be more efficient.
And, improving the scheduler’s productivity directly leads to better employee productivity and an increase in the agency’s bottom line.
Proactive alerts regarding duplicate schedules, missing authorizations, overtime, etc., alert the schedulers about potential issues at the point of scheduling.
Proactively detecting and resolving problems during scheduling reduces billing and payroll issues, improves employee productivity, reduces unnecessary payroll costs, and improves the agency’s bottom line.
Accurate schedule management is vital in improving revenue cycle management efficiency.
As potential billing issues at the point of scheduling are detected proactively, the billing team sends out clean claims. It improves the reimbursement timeline, cash flow, and the agency’s bottom line.
Also, accurate and timely payroll is crucial for caregiver satisfaction. In case of ineffective management, overtime, and shift differential costs quickly add up and reduce the agency’s bottom line.
Homecare scheduling software helps payroll staff minimize manual interventions and reduces the time spent to complete the payroll, thereby improving payroll accuracy.
Publishing shift offers and available shifts creates a pool of caregivers available to take shifts.
Having a ready set of caregivers reduces the need for schedulers to contract caregivers, improving scheduling efficiency, reducing uncovered shifts, improving employee productivity, and increasing revenue and the agency’s bottom line.
Communication is vital in effectively filling open shifts for clients with matching caregivers.
Schedulers usually spend a lot of time texting or talking with employees before scheduling one or more open shifts. Employee Portals, Family Portals, and integrated messaging apps help schedulers communicate effectively with clients and caregivers.
Besides, scheduling reminders for caregivers and clients significantly reduces missed shifts for clients and caregivers.
Home care agencies must optimize their resources, particularly their caregivers, who constitute a significant portion of their operational costs.
By leveraging the features of home care scheduling software mentioned above, agencies can meet the growing demand for home-based services while continuing to grow and thrive in the face of labor shortages.
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