Private Duty
What Is Private Duty?
Private duty agencies provide services to patients and families at various levels: skilled nursing services, personal care, live-in, errands, respite, vacation assistance, doctor visits, home maker, and so on. The services can be provided at home, at a hospital or a nursing home, performed on an hourly, per visit, per shift, or live-in basis. Agencies define their own billing rates for services; however, the rates are negotiable depending on the situation. Pay rates are also defined per employee and these can also be negotiated for special situations. Due to the specialized nature of some types of services, the rate (possible both the pay rate and the bill rate) for the service is negotiated hastily. That is why the Schedule and TimeLog components need to enable the entry of a negotiated rate and display the profit margin as the rates are being determined.
The purpose of the Private Duty features is to provide the tools in Netsmart Homecare to define the necessary work and holiday schedules per business Unit and per branch when applicable, enable negotiated pay rates and bill rates as an event is entered in Schedule or TimeLog, calculate overtime correctly, and allow you to view gross margin on a per-event basis.
The Private Duty functionality is not available in Transactions>General>Contract Invoices; however, contract employee pay rates and services can be negotiated if entered in Schedule.
Negotiation is available in both Host and Field modes. If you have privileges to negotiate and you use both Host and Field modes, you will have the gross margin capabilities in Schedule and TimeLog on the Field Unit.
The Private Duty functionality includes two new features that work regardless of whether you are a licensed Private Duty user:
Privileges for Working with Private Duty
You must have system administrator rights for the following operator privileges:
Administration>Configuration>Operators>Privileges:
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Administration>Configuration>Organizations:
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Administration>Configuration>Maintenance:
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You must have system administrator rights for the negotiation function for each Business Unit in Administration>Configuration>Organizations>Enable Private Duty Negotiation.
Working with the Private Duty Features
To set up and use the Private Duty features, follow these steps:
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Contact Netsmart Homecare Client Support Services to activate Private Duty functionality. |
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Important: If your agency uses the accrual accounting reporting, the Netsmart Homecare Accrual Accounting Service must be restarted once the Private Duty license is provided in order for the data to be processed and displayed on the reports correctly.
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The Insurance Type is Commercial, Self Pay, or Uncollectible. |
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Designate applicable staff credentials and warning criteria as required for specific resource types in Administration>General>Staff Credentials. |
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Define shifts, if applicable, in Pay Rates Calculator>Settings>Shifts. The appropriate privileges must be granted to access this function, or you must have system administrator rights. |
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Enter holiday names in Pay Rates Calculator>Settings>Holiday Names if applicable (if your agency pays staff different rates for holidays). |
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Define your agency's holiday schedule in Pay Rates Calculator>Settings>Holiday Dates if applicable (if your agency pays staff different rates for holidays). |
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Define the gross margin percentage threshold per Business Unit in Pay Rates Calculator>Settings>Gross Margin. |
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Define your agency week for pay rates reporting and exporting in Pay Rates Calculator>Settings>Agency Week. |
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If overtime pay is applicable to your agency, enter your agency week start day, number of work hours, and maximum allowable overtime hours in Pay Rates Calculator>Settings>Overtime Wizard. |
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Define pay rates by resource type in Pay Rates Calculator>Settings>Pay Rates. |
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If pay rate information is going to be negotiated for contractors, select the Pay Rate code for contractors in Administration>General>Service Code/Contractor. |
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Define negotiated pay rates for specific resources in Resource>General>Negotiated Pay Rates. |
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Enter visits for resources with negotiated pay rates in Schedule>Events>Schedule New Events or in Transactions>General>TimeLog. |
When you enter an event, the system will check to ensure that the resource being scheduled does not have expired credentials and that the operator scheduling the event has privileges to schedule an event that results in overtime if applicable.
If you receive a dialog box stating that you do not have the necessary privileges to enter the event, check your security settings in relation to the reason given in the statement that you are unable to save the visit.
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Recalculate any changed pay rates in Administration>Maintenance>Recalculate Pay Cost. |
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Recalculate any changed gross margin percentages against pre-existing services in Administration>Maintenance>Recalculate Pay Cost using the Recalculate Gross Margins option. |