Posted by Claire Powell on Wed, Feb 10, 2010 @ 09:34 AM
Bobby Robertson has been invited to and will participate in the
National Association for Home Care & Hospice
(“NAHC”) 2010 Strategic Planning Congress. This Congress brings together the best minds in the home health and hospice industries. The event is being held at the Ritz Carleton in Key Biscayne, Florida on February 11-12, 2010.
“The Home Care and Hospice providers I’ve been privileged to work with over the last fifteen plus years are the cornerstone of efficient and quality health care for our nation's elderly population. It is my responsibility to make their concerns known by working to influence the strategic direction of the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its efforts with Congress. I look forward to contributing to the fight to protect the rights of our providers and their patients.” - Bobby Robertson
Bobby is the President & CEO of HEALTHCAREfirst, Inc. and works with a highly regarded executive team to provide cutting edge technologies that improve business functions that allow home care and hospice agencies across the United States to focus on patient care. HEALTHCAREfirst was one of the first home care software vendors to recognize the industry's need for high quality software applications that are accessible over the worldwide web.
Posted by Claire Powell on Mon, Jun 15, 2009 @ 09:15 AM
New Web-based system offers hassle-free CPO payments
Physicians have a new incentive to claim CPO payments - and to refer to HHAs that help them.
It's a software program that lets them review plans of care and any suggested amendments on a dedicated Web site while also keeping a running total of the minutes physician users spend on them.
Called firstCPO, the software is an easy solution to the Medicare requirement that practitioners seeking CPO reimbursement do 30 minutes per month of related oversight work to be eligible, says Bobby Robertson, CEO for HEALTHCAREfirst, the Ozark, Mo.-based company that developed the program.
The reaction from the first physicians that have been introduced to this has been "very enthusiastic," says Teresa Henson, assistant administrator of Shepard's Crook Nursing Agency, a 275-patient HHA in Pampa, Texas, one of the first users of firstCPO.
The program will mean even more local physicians seeking CPO payments, she predicts.
Interim HealthCare added a similar CPO tracking option last year to the Web-based information system it operates for some last 320 company and franchise-owner locations [HHL 3/23/09].
firstCPO to become available to all
HEALTHCAREfirst has made this program available without charge to either the physicians that
refer to the vendor's approximately 400 HHA clients or to the client agencies themselves, Robertson says.
Starting this summer, however, the company expects to make the program available to all agencies. The charge for participating HHAs will be $2 to $3 per patient per month, though the service will continue to be free for doctors who use it, says CEO Robertson.
Posted by Claire Powell on Mon, Jun 15, 2009 @ 09:07 AM
Of the roughly 100 primary care practitioners referring to Shepard's Crook Nursing Agency, some 75% already are filing for oversight dollars, or more than twice the percentage two years ago.
The increase largely reflects the loss of practice revenues precipitated by the recession, Henson believes. Evidence of that is the physicians who hadn't been submitting CPO claims but who recently have asked Shepard's Crook for "15 months of paper" needed to support claims going back that far.
Henson hopes that firstCPO will help her agency avoid such requests in the future by making communications with doctors more efficient. Advised by e-mail notices, practitioners will be able to review and sign off on care plans and other patient information within minutes of its posting on the HHA's Web site, Henson notes.
Transmission of wound photos through firstCPO is in the planning stage.
Posted by Claire Powell on Mon, Jun 15, 2009 @ 09:00 AM
Responses to a recent HHL survey on care-plan oversight suggest agency marketers find slightly more than half the physician practices they call on unreceptive to seeking CPO payment.
Staff physicians at Archbold Medical Center in Thomasville, Ga., "were happy to jump on the CPO bandwagon" several years ago after Archbold's home health unit, Archbold Health Services, began educating them about the reimbursement to be earned, says Carissa Hill, the agency's community services coordinator. But in time the burden of the 30-minute requirement has reduced CPO filers to only "a handful" while nearly all continue to seek certification/recertification payments, which doesn't have the same 30-minute requirement, Hill says.
One favorable sign in the survey responses is the suggestion that Part B carriers are rejecting CPO claims much less frequently than they once did.
- Burt Schorr bschorr [at] decisionhealth.com
subscription information for Home Health Line is available at 877/602-3835 or customer@decisionhealth.com.
Posted by Claire Powell on Tue, Sep 02, 2008 @ 01:45 PM
HEALTHCAREfirst, a homecare software solutions veteran that has paved the way for web-based software and services in the home health and hospice industry, looks to further expand its lead by selecting The Riverside Company as its growth partner.
The Riverside Company is a global private equity firm that specializes in buying profitable, well-managed small and medium sized businesses that are market leaders in their niche. In partnership with management, Riverside seeks to grow its portfolio companies through increased capital expenditures, product expansion, and strategic add-on acquisitions.
Founded in 1992, HCF has grown from offering one software solution for its customers into a company that offers an entire suite of complementary products and services, all directly accessible online on a 24 hour/seven day a week basis. The range of products and services are designed to allow home health agencies and hospices to manage the clinical and operational aspects of their businesses. The core products increase productivity and improve cash flow by:
• maximizing reimbursements,
• eliminating paperwork,
• providing enhanced electronic tools to manage patients, personnel and payers,
• simplifying the billing and coding process, and
• eliminating errors.
"The Riverside team quickly recognized the growth potential at HEALTHCAREfirst," said Loren Schlachet, Riverside Managing Partner. "In addition to the significant industry growth trend, we see great potential in marketing the complementary product extensions for the software. Riverside's extensive experience in healthcare will assist the HEALTHCAREfirst management team to expand its product offerings and broaden its customer base. We also plan to find complementary add-on opportunities that improve HEALTHCAREfirst's ability to serve customers."
"I have personally invested in this growth along with The Riverside Company and will continue in my present position in order to be a part of this exciting time for HEALTHCAREfirst and our customers. Riverside will help us increase efficiencies in much the same way that we help our customers," said HEALTHCAREfirst CEO Bobby Robertson. "We have differentiated ourselves by offering an integrated bundle of products and services, giving our customers the freedom to focus on patient care instead of paperwork. Similarly, Riverside offers us a broad range of business and industry expertise that will enable us to operate efficiently and focus on delivering even stronger competitive advantages for our customers."
HEALTHCAREfirst, Inc. (www.healthcarefirst.com)
HEALTHCAREfirst has been providing software and services exclusively to the home care and hospice industries since 1992. The company is dedicated to providing cutting edge technologies that improve business functions to home care and hospice agencies across the United States. HEALTHCAREfirst was one of the first home care software vendors to recognize the industry's need for high quality software applications that are accessible over the worldwide web.
The Riverside Company (www.riversidecompany.com or www.riversideeurope.com)
The Riverside Company is the largest global private equity firm focused on the smaller end of the middle market ("SEMM") and is one of the industry's most experienced leveraged buyout investors. Riverside specializes in investing in premier SEMM companies (those valued up to $200 million) and partners with strong management teams to build companies through acquisitions and value-added growth. Since 1988, the firm has invested in 197 transactions with a total enterprise value of $4.4 billion. Its current portfolio is the U.S., Europe and Asia numbers 66 with combined annual sales of $3.2 billion, EBITDA of $517 million and more than 14,000 employees. Riverside offers the resources to complete acquisitions smoothly and in as little as 45 days - thanks to its sizeable pool of capital under management (more than $2 billion in nine funds), over 180 professionals in 17 offices (Amsterdam, Atlanta, Brussels, Budapest, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Los Angeles, Madrid, Munich, New York, Prague, San Francisco, Seoul, Stockholm, Tokyo and Warsaw), and long-standing relationships with partner lenders. Six of nine of the firm's mature vintages are currently top quartile, and the firm's investors include the world's leading pension funds, endowments, funds-of-funds, insurance companies and banks.