How do you manage productivity in a rehabilitation facility?
The Department of Rehabilitation Services, within the University of Maryland Medical Center's 650-bed academic medical center, was experiencing difficulty in meeting productivity standards. Therapists in the outpatient division believed they were not spending enough time performing billable patient care activities.
How is productivity measured in long term care therapy?
Oct 02, 2020 · Productivity in hospital therapy operations is typically measured by healthcare output, such as the quantity and quality of care. Therapists are generally held accountable for the number of patients seen each day and the quantity of billable units. When daily functions limit therapist productivity, they all feel the impact.
What is an appropriate productivity standard?
Outpatient Rehabilitation Therapy Services: MLN Booklet Complying with Documentation Requirements Page 6 of 10 ICN MLN905365 April 2019 Type of rehabilitation therapy services (PT, OT, or SLP) – where appropriate; the type may be a description of a specific treatment or intervention Therapy amount – number of treatment sessions in a day
What happened to the Department of rehabilitation services?
Mar 19, 2014 · Managing productivity requires walking a tight rope between meeting the needs of your patients and maintaining the financial stability of your facility. Changes in reimbursement and referral sources have most rehabilitation providers trying to do more with less. To maintain a successful practice, physical and occupational therapists and their assistants, as well as …
How is productivity rehabilitation calculated?
Productivity is nothing more than a measure of how much time a therapist spent with patients divided by the amount of time the therapist was clocked in. If a therapist is on the clock for eight hours (480 minutes) and spends six of those hours treating patients (360 minutes), they are 75% productive.
What are productivity standards in physical therapy?
Productivity is a percentage of how long a physical therapist is spending with their patients doing treatments that are considered billable by the insurance companies.May 28, 2020
How is productivity measured in therapy?
Practice-Driven Productivity MeasuresTotal number of patients seen per therapist.Clinical Staffing Efficiency – weekly or monthly measure taking total patients treated divided by the number of clinical (professional) staff hours. ... Total number of patients seen by clinic location.Oct 18, 2017
What are productivity standards in occupational therapy?
Productivity standards is a term often used to describe the expectation by a place of employment on their employees, in this case occupational therapy practitioners who are fieldwork educators, of how much work should be completed in a given timeframe.
What are productivity standards?
Productivity can be defined as the ration between input or output or more explicitly ration below the amount produced and the amount of any resources used in the course of production.Jan 5, 2020
What does 90 productivity look like?
For example, if you are on the clock for 8 hours and have a 90% productivity requirement, that means your goal is to work with patients for 7 hours and 12 minutes with only 48 minutes left for everything else.Nov 22, 2017
How do you determine productivity?
You can measure employee productivity with the labor productivity equation: total output / total input. Let's say your company generated $80,000 worth of goods or services (output) utilizing 1,500 labor hours (input). To calculate your company's labor productivity, you would divide 80,000 by 1,500, which equals 53.Feb 15, 2019
How do you calculate productivity in healthcare?
In the healthcare sector, the traditional measures of productivity are the labor output per health worker and the cost of the goods/services. Here, the two key metrics are time and financials, which directly focus on the bottom line of your operations, rather than the quality of services you provide.Sep 4, 2020
What is daily productivity?
Productivity is a measure of efficiency of a person completing a task. We often assume that productivity means getting more things done each day. Wrong. Productivity is getting important things done consistently.
What is a productivity occupation?
A category of occupations which focus on either employment, self-development, or making a contribution (socially or economically) to society or ... Access to the complete content on Oxford Reference requires a subscription or purchase.
What is healthcare productivity?
Traditional measures of productivity growth define health care output as the nominal expenditures on health care by service providers (hospitals, physicians, etc.) deflated by a price index for health care. In theory, this should yield a measure of units of output over time.
How is productivity measured in hospital therapy?
Productivity in hospital therapy operations is typically measured by healthcare output, such as the quantity and quality of care . Therapists are generally held accountable for the number of patients seen each day and the quantity of billable units. On-Demand Webinar: Improve Your Hospital Therapy Operations Across Multiple Settings.
What is a hospital director of rehab?
Hospital Directors of Rehab manage care for a variety of settings and therapy departments. They’re often responsible for leading teams of speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, and physical therapists. Not to mention, they’re constantly striving to impress the hospital’s CEO or COO and help patients reach peak functional improvement.
What is a POC in rehabilitation?
Outpatient rehabilitation therapy services must relate directly and specifically to a written treatment plan (also known as the POC). You must establish the treatment plan/POC before treatment begins, with some exceptions. CMS considers the treatment plan/POC established when it is developed (written or dictated) by a PT, an OT, an SLP, a physician, or an NPP. Only a physician may establish a POC in a Comprehensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility (CORF).
How often do you need to recertify a POC?
Sign the recertification, documenting the need for continued or modified therapy whenever a significant POC modification becomes evident or at least every 90 days after the treatment starts. Complete recertification sooner when the duration of the plan is less than 90 days, unless a certification delay occurs. CMS allows delayed certification when the physician/NPP completes certification and includes a delay reason. CMS accepts certifications without justification up to 30 days after the due date. Recertification is timely when dated during the duration of the initial POC or within 90 calendar days of the initial treatment under that plan, whichever is less.
How long does a HCPCS code have to be in a day?
CMS requires that when you provide only one 15-minute timed HCPCS code in a day, that you do not bill that service if performed for less than 8 minutes. When providing more than one unit of service, the initial and subsequent service must each total at least 15 minutes, and the last unit may count as a full unit of service if it includes at least 8 minutes of additional services. Do not count all treatment minutes in a day to one HCPCS code if more than 15 minutes of one or more other codes are furnished.
How long does a POC last?
The physician’s/NPP’s signature and date on a correctly written POC (with or without an order) satisfies the certification requirement for the duration of the POC or 90 calendar days from the date of the initial treatment, whichever is less. Include the initial evaluation indicating the treatment need in the POC.
What is CERT contractor?
The Comprehensive Error Rate Testing (CERT) Part A and Part B (A/B) Contractor Task Force is independent from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) CERT team and CERT contractors, which are responsible for calculation of the Medicare fee-for-service improper payment rate.
What is a positive attitude in a clinic?
A positive attitude goes a long way toward keeping your team happy and encouraging your patients to continue visiting your facility. Maintaining a perpetual smile and optimistic outlook is easier for some than others, but nobody can dispute that a pervasive feeling of happiness throughout the clinic is priceless. When therapists make the effort to say “good morning” at the start of each day and ask about each others’ lives, their contribution to a happy workplace should be rewarded during performance review time.
How many points can you give on a performance review?
Similarly, if someone runs a blog, you can assign anywhere from one to five points on the performance review, depending on factors like how many people visit the blog, how frequently the therapist publishes articles, and whether he or she mentions or promotes your clinic in the blog.
What do therapists do in a clinic?
In most clinics, therapists and assistants contribute to more than just the well-being of patients, and it’s up to managers to recognize and reward that. Your team will often create and improve processes for workflow, EMR usage, documentation, and more. These same valued team members may step up to help out with chart audits—or take over scheduling duties and represent management at meetings when you’re on PTO.
How to be a good leader?
While most of us acknowledge the importance of solid leadership skills, such skills aren’t always recognized by managers during performance reviews. There are lots of ways your team can step up to bat in these leadership roles, including: 1 Taking on students; 2 Organizing and facilitating meetings; 3 Initiating presentations and inservices; and 4 Leading interdisciplinary teams.
When to use standardized tests for low back disability?
In most settings, standardized tests are used at the beginning and end of patients’ courses of therapy . A therapist might provide an Oswestry Low Back Disability Questionnaire at the start and end of the plan of care, and these metrics can certainly play a role when performance review time rolls around.
Is physical therapy in a strange place?
Physical therapy is in a strange place right now. Burnout is rampant, the cost of education is higher than ever, and pay is stagnating at best. Talented therapists have resorted to jumping from job to job in search of an elusive salary bump.
Who is Meredith Castin?
Meredith Castin, PT, DPT, is the founder of The Non-Clinical PT, a career development resource designed to help physical, occupational, and speech therapy professionals leverage their degrees in non-clinical ways.
What is productivity in physical therapy?
“Productivity” is one of the most controversial terms in the physical therapy world these days . The vast majority of staff therapists are judged, to some extent, by their productivity numbers—and many are held to unrealistic standards that allow no margin of error to account for bathroom breaks, patient refusals, or even conferring with other medical team members regarding a patient’s care plan. Because productivity is based on the time we spend performing tasks that can be billed to insurance, it creates a very stressful situation for therapists who spend time performing “non-productive”—but completely necessary—tasks throughout the day, such as:
How many sessions a week for knee therapist?
When productivity is at the forefront of your therapists’ minds, they’ll stop considering whether a patient really needs three sessions a week for eight weeks—or whether spending 10 minutes on the stationary bike is really necessary for every knee patient.
Do therapists feel expendable?
Your therapists will feel expendable. Nobody likes feeling expendable, but your best therapists— you know, the ones who attend all the best continuing education courses and spend their lunch breaks reading PT journal articles—will start to feel that way if you value them based solely on their billable units.
Do therapists leave information to nurses?
So, when therapists are scrambling around from patient to patient, desperately trying to make their units, they’ll inevitably fail to connect with some nurses post-treatment—instead opting to leave information with cover nurses, who may or may not deliver the information correctly.
Is it possible to improve payor mix?
Striving to improve payor mix is always a top priority, but it is not always possible given market dynamics. To move margin in the right direction, leadership must focus both on rate and volume metrics. Taking your eye off productivity goals will not end well for clinic sustainability. see more.
Is documentation billable?
Documentation: The time we spend on documentation that justifies our treatments to payers and protects us from lawsuits is generally not considered billable or productive. Furthermore, our documentation requirements —and the time it takes to fulfill them—seem to increase all the time.
Does continuing education cost money?
Attending continuing education courses costs money—not just for the courses themselves, but also for the travel, meals, and lodging. When your therapists invest in themselves by taking courses that require them to shoulder those extra expenses, they are doing so to help their patients first and foremost.
What is productivity in therapy?
Productivity for all therapists is related to meeting or exceeding your facility’s goals for patient load and visits per day and week. This is related to how you manage your time with your patients, as well as how satisfied your patients are with the care they receive, and how likely they are to return to your practice. To work more efficiently and build great client rapport each day, here’s what you can do:
Why is quality of care important?
Quality of care is also an important factor in any facility’s success, as it affects patient satisfaction and referrals. By understanding the factors that affect productivity, Therapists can take steps to determine realistic expectations and find ways to minimize stress.
Why do clinicians feel they have to pump large volumes of patients through their doors and treatment programs to be productive?
This is largely due to the fact that reimbursement for many healthcare services is based on the clinician’s time —usually measured in treatment units.
What is productivity in business?
But in case you haven’t heard, productivity —according to businessdictionary.com — refers to “a measure of the efficiency of a person, machine, factory, system, etc., in converting inputs into useful outputs.”.
What is time based reimbursement?
What time-based reimbursement actually does —as mentioned above— is incentivizes clinicians to spend more time delivering mediocre or unnecessary treatment. However, when paid by the job —call it service-based payment or reimbursement— clinicians become incentivized to be efficient & effective.
How long does a wrist ultrasound take?
The clinician completes therapeutic ultrasound (6 minutes), manual wrist mobilizations (10 minutes) and applies ice (20 minutes). Total treatment time: 36 minutes, less if the patient opted to ice at home or on the way back to work. For a 36 minute treatment, the clinic earns $100 (the rate for treatment).
Why do we have jobs in healthcare?
We all need to remember that healthcare is about one thing: the patient. The reason we have jobs is because patients need our help and treatment. The reason most of us chose healthcare as a career was to help people get better. Focusing our metrics and KPIs on time-based productivity reduces patients to numbers. It incentivizes slower work of lower quality. Clinicians burn out trying to hit productivity numbers and running patients through cookie-cutter treatment protocols. We lose the human —or person-to-person— experience and service that healthcare should be.
How long can a clinician treat?
It also demonstrates an important concept: there is always an upper limit to the productive capacity of clinicians. Clinicians can only treat for a certain amount of time in a day. In an 8-hour day, that usually means roughly 432 minutes (90% of an 8 hours, or 480 minutes).
Who said you don't get paid for your time?
Jim Rohn used to say, “You don’t get paid for your time. You get paid for the value you put into the time.”. [1] Think about it: you pay a plumber to fix a leak, whether it takes him an hour or 10 minutes. You pay an HVAC company to make your AC blow cold. What you pay for is the value that professional provided you.
Listen and Subscribe to Podcast
You can use the player below to listen to the podcast or subscribe. If you are enjoying the podcast, PLEASE click here to leave us a review in iTunes, it will really mean a lot to us. THANKS!
Transcript
Mike Reinold: On this episode of The Ask Mike Reinold show, we talk about how you should deal with productivity standards in your physical therapy clinic.
What happens if your billable productivity is low?
You may need some guidance as to what and how to bill for your services. If your total productivity is low, then you MAY have performance issues, which should be dealt with.
How many minutes of workday is considered nonproductive?
Any time spent of that 450 minutes that is not being billed out to a patient is considered non-productive time.
Do therapists exist?
Therapists exist for their patients. Therapists want to do the right thing… for their patients AND their employer. Therapists want their facility to succeed..knowing that in the end this trickles down to helping their patients. That’s how therapists are wired. Therapists are not slackers.
Do therapists punch out at the end of the day?
Believe it or not, some therapists are so bound by productivity standards and the consequences of poor productivity, they will even punch out at the end of the day and stay to finish notes, just to be “productive.”.
Should assistants be able to bill more?
Assistants should be able to bill more daily as they are not bogged down with the documentation of evaluations and progress reports and discharge summaries. Therapsits should be a little lower. Therapists designated to answer consults or perform screens, etc. should have a lower billable expectation.
Is productivity tied to financial outcomes?
Since therapy is a revenue producing center in the long term care setting, productivity is tied to financial outcomes, as it typically only measures the amount of time spent in a workday providing “billable” activity.
Continuing Education and Certification
Professional Growth
Operations
Patient Outcomes
NPS Data
Leadership
Clinic Growth
Attitude
- A positive attitude goes a long way toward keeping your team happy and encouraging your patients to continue visiting your facility. Maintaining a perpetual smile and optimistic outlook is easier for some than others, but nobody can dispute that a pervasive feeling of happiness throughout the clinic is priceless. When therapists make the effort to ...
Traditional Metrics