How PointClickCare is Helping Providers Prepare for PDPM

We sat down with Doug Owens, Chief Information Officer at Prestige Care, Inc. to get his insights into how the Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM) will impact the industry, the role of technology, and what he looks for in a technology partner.

Tell us a bit about Prestige Care and your role.

Prestige Senior Living is part of a complete senior care organization which includes independent living communities, assisted living, memory care, home health, as well as rehabilitation and post-acute care. We have 80 facilities that provide care for roughly 12,000 residents on a yearly basis.

I joined the company as the CIO in August of 2016 with over 20 years of experience in the long-term and post-acute care industry. As the CIO I’m not looking at technology from the traditional sense, but how these tools help to inform and reinforce good process.

With the new PDPM rules coming into effect on October 1, how do you view it impacting providers?

I want to start off with a disclaimer that I am not a PDPM expert. And truthfully, I don’t think that any of us are; as providers we’re all learning as we go along and trying to figure it out.

Our biggest focus right now as an organization is training and education. Better understanding how this will not only bring a change of process, but a change of thought process. How we are handling assessments, how we deal with our MDS, understanding the new timelines and verbiage.

We’re privileged to be able to participate in PointClickCare’s PDPM roundtables where we have the opportunity to collaborate with other providers, subject matter experts, and our software vendor to better understand our position come October 1.

What do you expect from your software provider to help you prepare for PDPM?

First and foremost, we expect a partner that has experts on all the regulatory and revenue cycle management changes that come and an understanding of the implications of these changes. We look for a partner that actively engages us and keeps us informed. PointClickCare has been talking to us about PDPM for several months now, keeping us informed about the changes, gathering our feedback, and connecting us with other providers to learn and share best practices.

These are the things that give you confidence in your vendor, that even as the industry is figuring out exactly what the outcome and impacts of PDPM will be, PointClickCare is clearly focused on that journey and what it’s all about.

The other element is the completeness of vision that your partner has, and how forward thinking they are. One thing that was important to us was the ability to implement a single platform across all of our lines of business: independent living, assisted living, and skilled nursing. When you consider things like PDPM and the changes that it requires, implementing that across several platforms is worrisome.

What role do you see technology playing in the new PDPM world?

As I’ve mentioned, I’ve been having PDPM conversations for a while now, and even before PDPM was a topic of conversation we’ve been moving towards standardization across the entire clinical and financial continuum with our processes.

It’s all about doing it the same way every time to foster and create predictable results. This is definitely an area where technology plays a vital role. We’re working with PointClickCare to take advantage of all the benefits that the platform offers us, not only for PDPM but for our organization overall.

Having an accurate and complete view into all of our processes is allowing us to drive standardization. This is also where the levels of integrations that your vendor offers is important, everything from referral sources, medication management, pharmacy integration, secure messaging, skin and wound care – these are tools that are helping us drive standardization across our entire organization and operate more effectively from a clinical and financial perspective.

Providers like Prestige Care that will make the transition to true quality-driven care understand that intelligent technology is their best option. Choosing the right partner to support this transformation today, and prepare you for what’s coming, is critical.

If you would like to learn more about how PointClickCare is helping providers prepare for PDPM and sign up for the PDPM confidence series, visit our website.