Customer Support Blog

Medicaid audit is a quality control procedure carried out to ensure that particular services are being provided in accordance with federal and state regulations and that the documentation and billing practices demonstrates accuracy and integrity. During audits, providers are faced with a number of difficulties such as reporting decentralized service delivery and locating necessary documentation, ensuring quality and accuracy of documented information, exceeding service authorizations or failing to maximize utilization. Having a bad audit results in the loss of revenue for providers and more importantly, loss of valuable services for individuals.

Therap users go through audit with minimal, if any problems. This is because:

Service authorizations specifying services, unit rate, total amounts and expiration date are saved electronically along with a scanned copy of the original document from the State.

Service hours from program attendance records and ISP outcome tracking data are immediately reported against appropriate service authorizations.

Billing data can be easily traced back to service authorizations, and service plans.

Utilization management reports can be created to track average usage and remaining balance.

Online alerts and text messages are issued when service authorizations are about to expire or exceed given limits.

All these information is readily available online, within just a few clicks or taps. As a user once put it, – “(with Therap) you would have to ignore a lot of information to have a bad audit”.

Therap’s National Conference starts next Tuesday, February 7, 2012. The three-day event will will be a good place to meet Therap’s sales, support and development team members and find out about recent developments and future plans.

Event highlights will include:

• Hands-on training on different Therap modules including Individual Service Plans, Health Tracking and Electronic Billing
• Sessions for advanced level users and certified trainers
• User presentations
• Focused sessions for States, counties and multi-state providers
• Brainstorming and requirement analysis for future upgrades
• Presentations by other vendors

The registration for the event is still open. If you haven’t registered yet, please do so now.

Network with Peers

With more than 300 attending, Therap’s National Conference will be an excellent place for you to exchange ideas and develop personal networks with developmental disabilities professionals from across the country.

Join our event page on and share messages and pictures with your peers.

Also, feel free to leave us your comments and suggestions for future events.

See you in New Jersey!

Our Training and Implementation Team just got bigger. The newest member is Jordan Mar from Kansas City, Missouri. She will be working at our mid-west office with Chris & Jeff.

Jordan has been supporting people with disabilities from her high school days at the Lincoln Northeast High where she took care of an elementary school kid with special needs during her lunchtime, twice a week. After graduation she moved to Utah and stated working for the Dan Peterson school for children with special needs. During that time she also worked for Rise providing in-home support for children and adults with special needs. She also helped run a summer program for Rise and did respite care on the weekends.

During college days, Jordan worked in public schools as an early childhood special education paraprofessional, with 3-5 year olds with autism and other developmental disabilities. Later on she participated in a Management Training Program through Developmental Services of Nebraska. She also helped at two group homes in Nebraska; one was a home for young boys with autism and the other for men considered to be high risk to the community.

After completion of the program, Jordan moved to Kansas City, Missouri where she was the Residential Supervisor for five homes in the Kansas City area.

Jordan went to the University of Nebraska to pursue a degree in education. She is currently pursuing a degree in Early Childhood Education through the distance education program offered by the University of Nebraska.

Jordan will attend Therap’s National Provider Administration conference in New Jersey next month, with other members of the Training and Implementation team.

Between February – October, 2012, Therap Certified Trainers Bonnie Scott and Lorelei Lasko will be conducting a series of webinars on different Therap modules. These will be helpful for those who want to develop advanced level skills on Therap’s web-based documentation and reporting software for developmental disabilities providers. For details please check the listings below:

• Individual Plan of Protective Oversight and Safeguards 02-13-2012
• Provider Administration 02-22-2012
• Health Tracking and MAR’s 03-13-2012
• GER’s vs Non-GER’s 04-25-2012
• Training Your Staff to Use Therap 05-03-2012
• Implementing Therap for New Providers 05-07-2012
• Quality Assurance & Therap Across Multi-State and Large Providers 05-10-2012
• GER’s vs Non-GER’s 05-16-2012
• Training Your Staff to Use Therap 10-25-2012

As a part of the work towards CCHIT compliance, enhancements have been made to Therap Allergy Profiles and Medication History to show drug-allergy and drug-drug interactions in these two interlinked forms. If there is a chance of an allergic reaction or an adverse reaction due to medication, the information is highlighted in prominent red fonts so that they have less chance of being overlooked.

When a new allergy is added, the system checks it against active medications and issues a warning if there is a chance of an adverse reaction.

Again, if an active allergy has a conflict with an active medication, users are shown a warning.

Drug-allergy information is also shown on the Medication History page. In addition to drug-allergy interactions, drug-drug interaction information is also shown.

Therap’s next User Group in Ohio, being hosted at the Starcher Family Home in Apple Creek on Friday, February 24, 2012, at 9 am.

The event will be convened by Justin Brockie, Therap’s Chief Operating Officer. We will be discussing effective use of various Therap applications and brainstorm on future updates. This will also be an opportunity to take a close look at newly released features in 2012.0.

Registration to the event is free. If you have questions, feel free to contact us if you have questions.

We look forward to seeing you in Apple Creek.

Date
February 24, 2012
Time
9 am EST
Location
Starcher Family Home
5027 Dover Road
Apple Creek, OH 44606-9694
Registration (*Free)

In version 2012.0, Therap is bringing out a new module to track individual Medication Reconciliation.  The module will track whether that medication reconciliation has been completed at the time of admission, discharge and each change in level of care during facility stay. The module will provide the ability to capture a signature or the User ID and the date stamp as per the CCHIT requirements.

While adding reconciliation on the form, the application offers flexible options for users to select the reconciler’s name from the user list, as well as physicians and Registered Nurses’ list pulled in from contacts. Users then include the reconciliation date, specify active duration, attach additional documents and relevant comments.

The introduction of the Medication Reconciliation module (along with Medication Profiles, Individual History and Care Plans) is consistent with Therap’s goal to achieve CCHIT compliance by mid 2012. For more information on Therap’s CCHIT Compliance Plan, please refer to our CCHIT Requirements page.

In addition to Therap’s regular suite of web-based documentation software for the developmental disability community, Therap has the capability of creating customized forms which support complete work flows, archiving, navigation, and roles like other Therap applications. These forms are normally used to document different types of assessments and special needs.

A number of these custom forms are kept on Therap’s Global Template Library (accessible from Therap FirstPage). Some of the most used custom forms are:

• Medication Administration Assessment Tool - documents the different medications the individuals are taking, the medium they use to receive the medications and the level of assistance they might need.
• Personal Property – comprehensive details of properties owned by Individuals.
• Health Passports – includes an Individual’s Personal Information, Functional Information, Consent Procedures, Medical Information and Medical Problems.
• Comprehensive Assessment Form – contains information regarding the overall health condition of an individual’s Diagnoses and Physiological Conditions, Safety Issues, Functional level for activities of daily living, Behavioral health issues etc.
• Risk Management Assessment and Plan – records different risk factors for an individual, assessment on these factors and the plan for the appropriate steps that should be taken when the risk arises.

Click to see a full list of available custom forms.

The Medication History module of Therap’s electronic Health Tracking application supports a standard reporting feature that allows users to produce reports on an individual’s approved and/or discontinued medications within a specific period. The report includes such details as medication category, subcategory, type, dosage, measurement unit, frequency, route, prescriber’s name and many more.

In addition to this standard report, Therap Medication Histories allow users the flexibility to create custom reports in which they are able to specify the output columns, for medication names, category, dosage, frequency, administration frequency and so on. The custom reports can be based on parameters such as particular individuals, programs, medication administration date and medication type among others.

As with other Therap reports, the Medication History custom reports can be exported to Excel for further data analysis and manipulations.

QMRP - Qualified Mental Retardation Professionals/QDDP – Qualified Developmental Disability Professionals (a.k.a., Case Managers) working in ICF-MR/DD programs are responsible for the overall supervision and coordination of active programs and services for persons with developmental disabilities. They work alongside nursing/health care professionals to ensure all consumers in the program are receiving appropriate services on an individual basis.

A QMRP/QDDP is responsible for all programmatic documentation, including assessments, Individual Service/Program Plans (ISP/IPP), behavior plans, goal tracking, periodic reviews and quality assurance reviews. They are also responsible for team meeting documentation and staff training management.

Therap provides a comprehensive solution for QMRPs to complete all these tasks in a systematic and efficient way. Therap’s ISP module facilitates methodical and concise service/program plan building and goal tracking. Therap Behavior Tracking applications allow users to create concise behavior plan for users (recommending appropriate interventions for target behaviors) and effectively report on behavioral issues. Therap’s flexible reporting features simplifies periodic reviews and quality assurance reviews. Therap also provides effective tools for staff training amd certification management.

In addition to the above, Therap Secure Communications and T-Logs (communication logs) allow QMRP/QDDP’s to communicate securely with case manages, ISP team members, behavior analysis, family members, county and state officials and surveyors. If you are a QDDP, and are looking out for an electronic documentation and record management system, you should definitely check out Therap.