Organization
In-Home Health Care Services Inc.
In-Home Health Care Services Inc. has been meeting the growing demand for home care since 1991 with experienced staff and attentive service. They have 4 office staff and 60 field employees who visit clients’ homes as needed, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
Location: Traverse City, Michigan, USA
Industry: Home Healthcare
Company size: 50-100 employees
Challenges
As the business grew, In-Home Health Care Services Inc. (IHHCS) found employee scheduling and employee attendance increasingly more difficult to manage. Scheduling for home care staff took at least 20 hours a week to complete using an Excel spreadsheet. It also required multiple rounds of review and confirmation to ensure staff schedules matched with clients’ needs. IHHCS then mailed schedules to employees, leaving little time between when they received schedules and when schedules began. When clients’ appointments changed, IHHCS had to resend affected schedules.
Home care worker scheduling confusion created frequent staff calls to the office, as well as calls from clients when staff were late or did not show up.
“In this business, every single issue is an emergency issue. We’re talking about getting people taken care of and it’s a very fast-paced environment. Anytime there was a mistake, the phone was ringing off the hook. Our phones were going a hundred miles a minute.”
Jamie Smith, Lead Administrator
Solution
Celayix stood out to Smith with the right balance of functionality and affordability. As an easy-to-use scheduling system, Celayix allowed the scheduler to easily match employees and assign them to shifts, all based on client needs. Staff can easily access their schedules on their phones, and use them to check in and out of shifts at clients’ homes.
The Celayix team also helped IHHCS configure the system to best suit their needs. First, all time was calculated in 15-minute intervals, instead of hours. Second, IHHCS needed to customize billing to match state format requirements.
Overall, Celayix provided a system that significantly reduced IHHCS’s administrative work.
“We don’t have to go back and forth between spreadsheets, and we know immediately if we’ve missed something.”
Jamie Smith, Lead Administrator
Results
Increase scheduling efficiency and postage and mailing cost savings of $10,000 a year
Automated employee scheduling in Celayix lets staff match employees with client appointments more easily and accurately. The software identifies scheduling conflicts and immediately lets staff know if no one is assigned to a specific client.
With the ease of employee scheduling, In-Home-Health-Care-Services now creates employee schedules that cover two weeks instead of one. Employees can also access their own schedules – instead of calling into the office to check – significantly reducing daily calls. There’s never any confusion or worry about whether an employee received a schedule on time. Plus, IHHCS saves on postage and mailing costs, which Smith estimates to total $10,000 a year for sending employee schedules.
Increased the quality of its workforce and the quality of client care
Staff can clock in from their phones once they arrive at a client’s home, and clock out once they leave, ensuring accurate time tracking. That information is immediately in the Celayix system to support billing and payroll. It also makes the organization EVV compliant!
It also gives the administrative team an irrefutable record of employee attendance. In cases where clients with dementia claim that aid was late—who in fact may have been on time— IHHCS has a record of the exact time, the employee called in. If an employee does not clock in or calls from another location, the office receives an email alert.
In the first two months of using Celayix, the software assisted the business in reducing tardiness and no-shows, as well as improving the overall accountability of its employees.
“It’s like a nice little GPS tracker for our employees. Home health care staff that were not being honest about their time or taking advantage of clients were no longer able to do so. With proper time tracking, they either became more accountable, or they are no longer employed with the business.”
Jamie Smith, Lead Administrator
Reduce accounting costs by $25,000 a year
When IHHCS brought in Celayix, the business relied on a contract accountant to process billing and its weekly payroll. Manually pulling attendance off time sheets, and factoring in holiday and overtime pay was nearly a full-time job.
Celayix gives the business an exact record, with alternative pay automatically factored in, for simplified billing and payroll processing. As a result, the business brought payroll in-house and cut in half the amount of work it gave the accountant—effectively saving IHHCS about $25,000 to $30,000 per year.
Overhead cost savings and reinvestment into business growth
In hard costs alone, automated employee scheduling, and employee time and attendance tracking save the business $35,000 to $40,000 per year. In the first nine months of using the solution, IHHCS realized a return on its investment. Each subsequent year, the company saves 10 times the cost of its annual support and maintenance costs. That doesn’t even take into consideration the qualitative benefits of the solution.
Instead of two to three people answering phones continuously, now one person is usually sufficient to field incoming calls. Administrative staff use that time to check in with clients, address employee issues, and actually help grow a sister business, Great Lakes Maintenance & Plow Services. For the first time, Great Lakes added summer lawn care, as well as more year-round revenue.
“Celayix has had a snowball effect. Clients are happier and getting better care, employees are happier, and administrators are happier. It’s brought a whole new level of consistency and control.”
Jamie Smith, Lead Administrator
