With 35 employees and ten physical therapy clinics throughout central Missouri, Peak Performance Physical Therapy needed to find a way to solve its mounting IT challenges to avoid administrative and clinical problems. The group's existing patient care tracking and billing processes were simply not efficient for the rate at which the clinics were opening, and Peak Performance decided to take control of clinical documentation and reimbursement. By using a therapy software system, the group was able to increase the accuracy and quality of its clinical documentation, while improving productivity and optimizing reimbursement schedules.
Peak Performance now experiences a 35 percent increase in net revenue per patient visit - contributing directly to the group's profits and ability to expand into new regions. For years, all areas of Peak Performance's documentation process - including administrative and clinical functions - had been conducted manually, and it was beginning to show. This outdated process was having an effect on not only workflow efficiencies, but also on bottom line results. On the administrative side, Peak Performance was constantly at risk of losing money because the group often unknowingly scheduled visits that were not approved by the payor. If a patient was authorized for eight physical therapy appointments, but ended up meeting for ten visits, the group was not reimbursed by the payor and had to incur the expense of the additional two visits.
In their daily schedule, therapists would postpone the handling of administrative functions such as charting clinical notes to the end of the day, but with a stack of patient charts piled up, the quality of the clinical notes inevitably dropped. "It just wasn't an efficient system because the delay from treatment to charting would sometimes lead to not only poor documentation in the patient charts, but also incorrect and incomplete application of billing codes," said Phil Threatt, Administrator of Peak Performance Physical Therapy. From an accounts receivable standpoint, it was clear that the reimbursement process was ineffective and just not up to payor standards. Claims were regularly reimbursed at a lower rate, and were sometimes rejected altogether. "Physical therapy practices continually need to find ways to become more efficient and receive payments faster while providing great patient care," said Threatt. "Care and reimbursement are always intertwined and you cannot separate the two. We needed an outpatient information system that would bring the two elements together in a cohesive, fluid process."
The Solution After a long assessment process in which multiple outpatient information systems were evaluated, Peak Performance selected a software designed as a complete solution for rehabilitation clinics, and manages everything from scheduling, registration, management reporting. "We chose the the system because it is built for physical therapists, by physical therapists," said Threatt. "The company understands our market, challenges and nuances. This was a refreshing change from the other software companies who try to be all things to all people and sell the same practice management system to a physical therapist that was just sold to a pediatrician or OB/GYN. "We needed a specialized solution." Upon implementation, the system immediately solved Peak Performance's scheduling challenges because it automated the front desk processes through task prompts and intelligent drop-down menus. The group's administrative staff no longer had to worry about scheduling unauthorized visits, because the system actively notifies the user if a patient has met his/her allotted visits.
Their physical therapy software merges patient care and administrative aspects by providing a much needed structure in the way Peak Performance therapists enter clinical notes. The group's clinical notes are laid out against both short-term (2-4 weeks) and long-term (4-8 weeks) goals. When therapists create daily S.O.A.P. (Subjective, Objective, Assessment, Plan) notes for their patients, the system prompts therapists through each step of the process. Therapists can then instantly track the progress of each patient, so they can justify directly to the payor, the rate at which each patient is reaching treatment goals. Because of the inherent flexibility of the system, Peak Performance's therapists have been able to customize the use of the software to their own documentation needs and past experience with similar information system tools.
"The support team assigned to us by the company has been very receptive to implementing our suggestions," said Threatt. "The company continually offers upgrades and added functionality to the system to make it more useful to our specific needs." The wireless, point-of-care system has enabled Peak Performance to increase revenue by strengthening its ability to capture and manage more complete and accurate clinical documentation. The group now experiences a 35 percent increase in net revenue per visit by limiting the clinical errors associated with poor handwriting, treatment omissions and unclean notes. "The therapy software provides us with an intelligent way to track the number of patient visits, referrals and treatment histories," said Threatt. "And, because scheduling, registration and reporting can be accessed from multiple computers and facilities through a secure connection, this solution just made more sense than competitive offerings based at an on-site server." Today, the group also uses the system as a self evaluation tool.
At any given point, Peak Performance administrators can use the physical therapy reporting functions to evaluate therapist and administrative staff efficiency, which can be an invaluable tool when trying to coordinate the workflow of employees across ten locations. "The software makes the parts of the job that therapists like least - documentation and administrative processes - easier," added Threatt. "With all of the automated functionality, our therapists have been able to spend less time on administrative processes and more time on what they do best... patient care."
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