Month: March 2023

When clients are given a Home Care Package from the government, they need to know what they have spent their funds on and what funds they have remaining to allocate to care. The Home Care Package is accrued monthly and the government subsidy each month is detailed in your statement.

What’s included in a Home Care Package(HCP)?

A Home Care Package is designed to provide individuals with a package of funds that can be used to access any care or services they require to maintain a safe and comfortable life in their own home. There are established guidelines that define what a Home Care Package can be used for – some these things may include:

• Meal preparation
• Transport to and from appointments
• Household tasks such as cleaning, gardening and washing
• Allied health services such as physiotherapy

Who is eligible?

As everyone’s care needs are different, there are four levels of Home Care Packages with different funding amounts. The package level assigned to someone is based on their needs. 

• Level 1 – $9179.75
• Level 2 – $16147.60
• Level 3 – $35138.55
• Level 4 – $53268.10

Someone in Level 1 may only require minor assistance whereas someone assigned to Level 4 may need assistance across meals, transport, allied health and full household support.

The key is working with a chosen provider to identify those decide and then how best to spend that budget package funding. Your service provider coordinates and can manage your services for you on your behalf.

What is a Home Care Package Monthly Statement?

Monthly statements provide transparency and accountability for the use of HCP funding, ensuring clients are aware of how their funds are being used.

The Australian government requires that monthly statements for HCPs include the amount of home care subsidy and fees paid, unspent funds, and a list of care and services provided during the month. This information must be presented in a clear and understandable format. Using a monthly statement template can help make statements easier to understand for care recipients, empowering them to make informed decisions about the use of their package funds. It is important to note that monthly statements must be provided for any month in which home care is provided, even if the person does not receive services or has taken temporary leave.

That’s why Nightingale’s HCP software maintains the latest HCP statement formatting to keep you compliant. All your client’s services, package purchases, care management fees, income tested fees, and travel costs prepared and sent at the click of a button, making it easy for you to meet your obligations.

We are actively working to improve this feature and are proud to be one of two software solutions that offer this service. Our goal is to constantly help home care providers simplify their processes and ensure their clients receive the care and support they need rather than focussing on manual inputs and administrative work.

Less Admin, More Care

Administrative work can be time-consuming and take away from the valuable time you could be spending on delivering high-quality care. That’s why we’ve written this article – to share 5 ways that you can use software to save hours every day on admin.

Rostering

We understand the critical role that effective rostering plays in the disability support industry. Frontline support workers are often employed on a casual basis, making it essential to have a reliable rostering system in place. Managing staff schedules can be complicated, especially in the care sector where balancing the availability and qualifications of carers with clients’ needs and geographic locations can be challenging. However, by using software to automate and help, the process can be streamlined. By having all the necessary information in one program, it becomes easier to match the most suitable team member with each client. Furthermore, the document uploads feature allows for quick review of staff certifications to ensure that they are the best fit.

While rostering can be a time-consuming task, it can be easily automated to help fill shifts and manage break compliance. This automation can greatly enhance the productivity of your rostering team, enabling them to quickly navigate challenges like shift cancellations and calculating support ratios from group services.

However, not all rostering tools are created equal, and many take a ‘one size fits all’ approach to every industry. At Nightingale Software, we know that what works for other sectors may not be suitable for specific support organisations.

Invoicing

The right software is designed to streamline your operations and help you save time. When considering end to end software options for your business, look for a system that integrates timesheets, expenses, scheduling, and accounting, so you can manage invoicing and bookkeeping with ease, without the need for multiple programs or apps.

Our software is specifically designed to handle the complexities of NDIS invoicing, with the latest Price Guide (all 100+ pages of it) synced up and ready to go. We offer digital service agreements to ensure that all line items are in alignment with what your customers have approved for, and our automated pricing and invoicing capabilities allow you to invoice the correct fee for every service, on the day it was completed.

Timesheets

Are you depending on team members to manually record their start and end times for their shifts, which they often do at the end of the day? Is there still a manual approval process in the office where someone compares the recorded hours with the rostered times?

With the right software, the need for staff members to complete a separate timesheet is no longer necessary. Every completed shift, along with any required case notes (as per your internal policies), is automatically transmitted to the payroll system for processing of payments, or to the line management for approval. The flexibility to choose and manage the timesheet process is in your hands. This can lead to more accurate and efficient tracking of employee work hours and make the overall payroll process smoother and hassle-free. Additionally, the automated flow of data can minimise the risk of errors and omissions that can arise with manual entry and processing of timesheets. With such software, you can optimise your work processes, streamline your administrative tasks, and increase productivity.

Client information

Support work is a crucial services that will always require a personal touch. However, there are opportunities to streamline the process using automation while maintaining that one to one connection.

One possible solution is to prompt team members to update their notes on their devices at the end of their shift using an preset workflow. This saves them time by doing updating case notes on the fly rather than having them pile up – it also ensures the information is up-to-date and accurate, preventing delays in invoicing and making it easier to provide customers with the support they need.

Incorporating automation into care services allows companies to provide the best possible care and support to their customers while improving their efficiency. By leveraging technology, companies can still optimise their processes without sacrificing the empathy and personal touch that defines support work.

Incident reporting

Implementing an incident tracking and reporting system with customisable forms and workflows can save hours of time. With the right system in place, issues can be documented easily and with all necessary approval details, resolution steps, and reporting requirements fulfilled within specified timeframes.

The customisable form functionality allows you to tailor the forms to your specific needs and requirements, ensuring that all relevant information is collected upfront. The workflow functionality can automate the approval process, ensuring that all necessary stakeholders are notified and that the proper approvals are obtained in a timely manner. This can save significant time and reduce the risk of delays or missed deadlines.

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Contact us today to learn more about how Nightingale can simplify and automate your admin work so you can focus on what matters most – delivering exceptional care.