Home health therapists have long battled outdated EMR systems and, as a result, slogs of documentation inefficiencies. But Home Health Soft is a documentation and management platform that is changing the game for home health therapists. Keep reading for my Home Health Soft review!
Upgrading An Outdated Documentation System
As a home health therapist, these are a few of my favorite things: helping patients in their homes, having flexibility in creating my schedule, and enjoying the freedom to work almost anywhere! But there is one aspect of home health that I and most therapists don’t enjoy: documentation. We don’t have many options for home health EMR software, and most of it is horrible—including that big-name platform you and I have both used!
In fact, I’ve used multiple EMRs in the home health setting, everything from Homecare Homebase to Cerner. Each program came with its own intrinsic inefficiencies and frustrations, creating extra work for me every time I set out to write my notes.
While it doesn’t look like these giant EMR platforms will change any time soon, change is coming to the home health business in a big way. Home Health Soft is a new documentation software that’s making waves, especially among home health contractors.
If you are a home health contract therapist, or if you want to start your own home health contract therapy business, you’ll need reliable, easy-to-use EMR software. My recommendation is to consider Home Health Soft (HHS).
Home Health Soft Review
In the sea of software providers, what makes Home Health Soft unique is its insider perspective. The HHS software was started by a Physical Therapist and owner of a home health contracting business, who was frustrated by the shortcomings of traditional EMRs.
I can’t stress enough the importance of this detail. An intuitive user experience is precisely what generated and guided the creation of the HHS software, from the inside out. As a result, Home Health Soft is a flexible platform that truly meets the needs of home health therapists on the field.
Come with me on a deep dive into the features that differentiate Home Health Soft and which, in my opinion, function better than the other EMRs I’ve used.
Online Therapy Referrals
Let’s start with the basics: therapy referrals. As a home health therapy contractor, your work begins whenever you receive referrals, sometimes from multiple agencies. With Home Health Soft (HHS), you can receive those referrals directly from agencies and assign them to therapists right away, all within the system.
What’s different about HHS, compared to other EMRs, is that it allows you to assign clinicians based on the patient’s distance, the therapist’s workload, or other criteria that you set. Plus, if the agency makes any changes to the order, the software will automatically update the order within the patient’s chart.
Check out the sample interface of therapy referrals below:
Straight-forward Patient Scheduling
In Home Health Soft, there are two ways to view the calendar: from the patient’s dashboard or from the therapist’s schedule.
Within the patient’s dashboard, you’ll get a clear view of the patient’s calendar. From here you can quickly schedule additional visits or even modify or cancel appointments. See below:
The therapist calendar is just as simple and easy to navigate. From this end, you can see at a glance the appointments you have scheduled for each day. You can even dive into that therapy note right from the calendar by clicking on the task. If you have a conflicting or overlapping appointment, all you have to do is navigate to the patient calendar and move the visit to another day or time.
Here’s what the therapist calendar looks like:
Simplified Documentation
At the heart of HHS is its simplified approach to home health documentation. Forget the dozens of pages or screens to click through, which you’d find in other software programs. Home Health Soft provides a familiar documentation format similar to an outpatient SOAP note. Whether you’re working on an evaluation, daily treatment note, or discharge note, you can quickly view all of its required fields on one page.
Here’s what you’ll see when you write a note in HHS:
This single-page approach accelerates the documentation process by eliminating the need to flip back and forth between pages. Quickly scroll up to the top to check your subjective history and objective findings, or jump down to the assessment section to edit your treatment rationale. Unlike other bulky home health software, with HHS there is no need to bounce between tabs when writing your notes.
Along the top of the note you’ll see tabs for other patient details, from “referral” and “plan of care” to “patient info” and “calendar.” As you write your note, if you need to check something in the doctor’s orders, for example, simply click that tab to view the information. But again, the entire note can be completed without bouncing between multiple tabs—making your notewriting speedier and more efficient!
You can see those tabs in this view below:
Creating Documentation Templates in HHS
A feature that really sets apart Home Health Soft from its competitors is the option to create documentation templates. As a long-standing user of hotkeys and quicksheets, I am all about therapy documentation templates. These shortcuts can help streamline the writing process and ensure your notes are thorough, consistent, and—best of all—a breeze to write. Turns out, the brains behind Home Health Soft also recognized the value of documentation templates, and now therapists can seamlessly access their templates within the HHS software.
At the top of any note, look for the “Actions” option and click “Create as template.” This will save your findings as a template for quick reference later when you see the same patient or a patient with the same condition. For example, if you’re working on a note for a total knee replacement, you can save the details you commonly use for this evaluation and reference it quickly whenever you open a new case for another TKA patient.
Sending Documentation to Agencies
Once you’ve finished your documentation, you can easily save it as a PDF and send the note directly to the agency. This simplifies your administrative tasks and frees you up to focus instead on patient care.
Agency Billing and Payroll Processing
As a home health therapy contractor, to pay yourself and your therapists you submit invoices to the home health agency. Home Health Soft has streamlined this task by integrating the payroll and billing process.
Once your clinic notes are approved, with one click you can bill the home health agency and send the invoice to the contact on file. The payroll feature lets you set up specific payroll rates at various levels depending on visit type, patient case, or provider level. This simplifies payments and nearly automates the process!
Why Not Use the Home Health Agency’s Software?
Maybe you’re new to home health contracting, and you figure it’s easier to just use the agency’s documentation software. While that may save you some money initially, you’ll end up having to bounce between different softwares for different agencies, which can be burdensome to you and your therapists. Besides, the software used by most agencies is slow, inefficient, and liable to give you and your team a barrage of documentation headaches.
By employing a software of your choosing, you can stay in control of the user experience for yourself and your therapists. Home Health Soft is designed by therapists for therapists, helping you speed up your note-writing, stay organized, and manage your billing and payroll—all in one.
Granted, using a software like HHS will incur an additional upfront cost, but the benefits will quickly outweigh it. For solo practitioners, Home Health Soft costs just $90/month, including access to all the features that will save you time and money. As you build your home health contracting business, bringing on additional therapists and expanding your clientele, Home Health Soft can quickly adapt. The option for ad-hoc customizability ensures this software will meet your needs and provide efficient therapy documentation for years to come, no matter where business takes you.
Special Offer for Home Health Soft
Although it started in physical therapy, Home Health Soft isn’t limited to PTs; the platform can support Occupational Therapists, SLPs, and even Music and Massage Therapists!
Want to check it out for yourself? You can get one month of Home Health Soft free when you use the referral code “PTProgress.” Simply email [email protected] and let them know you’d like to try the software for free with the promo code PTProgress.
