Thinking About Centralizing Your Intake?

As a post-acute provider, one of the greatest accomplishments is to see your business to grow. Your patient census begins to increase and suddenly you can form new branches of your agency and serve a greater area. With this expansion can come its own set of challenges, and you may be faced with the daunting task of centralizing your intake.

Without a uniformed intake process, home care agencies and hospices can experience confusion, leading to a delay in patient care. Most hospices and home care agencies are extremely fast-paced environments requiring staff to quickly respond to new referrals and any slowdown in admittance is unacceptable. With multiple locations, the office that originally receives the referral may not be the appropriate branch to serve that particular patient. This, however, may not be realized until forms have already been completed, leaving staff to re-administer the intake and assessment. This shifting of a patient to the proper location and process duplication further delays the admission of the patient as well as detracts from staff’s time.

With a centralized intake all of these inefficiencies are eliminated. New referrals are processed through one location and are easily and quickly routed to the appropriate branch. With this, the business can expect to see a decrease in administrative costs as well as an increase in revenue.

Tips for implementing a centralized intake:

1. Uniformity Across the Company – This is a process change that should be wholeheartedly embraced and there should not be any exceptions to the rules that are put in place. For example, if a marketer is handed a new referral he/she should forward it to intake instead of processing it. You are creating a centralized intake for a reason, be consistent with the rules.
   
   
2. Expand in Phases – Do not run a marathon before you can walk. A centralized intake can come in phases, adding a location every week or in whatever timeframe works best. Within these breaks between implementation, make the most of your time. Be sure to address any issue which may arise as well make sure the proper training is taking place.
   
   
3. Reallocate Employees – Chances are, with a centralized intake you will not be utilizing all employees that were devoted to these process before. Since the burden has been lifted, their time can now be spent on things that can drive revenue to the business. Have those employees focus on getting the orders and referrals back faster.
   
   

At Forcura we have experience assisting our clients with this process. Click here to learn more about how we can help centralize your intake.