End-to-End Solutions for ABA Practices to Go from Administrative Nightmare to Superior Outcomes

When you provide services and resources to help people with autism or other behavioral disorders, you are directly responsible for positively shaping their lives.

As an Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) practitioner or educator, you have a rewarding, yet challenging objective — to transform the way people see the world by accelerating learning outcomes and empowering your clients to take back their independence.

Managing an ABA agency that provides direct services to clients is one of the most fulfilling, yet challenging jobs imaginable. Scheduling therapy sessions, navigating billing procedures, collecting accurate data and maximizing your clinical and operational procedures are just some of the many complexities to take into consideration. One thing is for certain — time is your biggest ally.

But imagine if you could manage all the facets of your ABA practice in one place?

Here are a few problems that can contribute to the chaos of managing your organization and how CentralReach can help you put an end to this paperwork nightmare, so you can start producing superior outcomes across all areas of your practice.

1. Billing and Insurance Claims

Incorrect billing hinders the growth of even the most successful medical practice. The first round of insurance claims, denials and resubmissions quickly drains valuable time, and the more iterations and adjustments made, the more you will negatively impact your bottom line and lose valuable time that could be spent providing quality care.

In the ABA industry specifically, the billing process is very tedious and time-consuming. Each insurance payor has its own specific portal, procedures, and requirements to adhere to — and when not followed accordingly — your clean claim rates and cash flow can suffer.

2. Scheduling

Effective scheduling is a “make or break” factor for any ABA agency. Whether a client has been approved for 30 minutes 3 times per week, or 3 hours once a month, you must juggle booking your clinical teams to provide effective customized care on a daily basis. This requires controlled methods to ensure appointments are scheduled correctly at the right recurrent times. It also means you need to match clients and providers based on location, availability, and skills.

Needless to say, a free and decentralized scheduling system can make this process a long and tedious obstacle that has the potential to take time away from your clients.

3. HIPAA Violations

The minimum cost of a HIPAA noncompliance infraction can be up to $50,000 per violation or record — and that’s not including costs associated with jail time and losing your certification.

In an industry where technicians are constantly in the field providing services based on programs prepared by Board Certified Behavior Analysts (BCBA), effective and protected communication is critical to avoiding costly HIPAA violations. Something as simple as provider-to-client or provider-to-provider email or text messaging including any Protected Health Information (PHI) details, such as personal information or treatment plans, can put you at risk. Additionally, you must ensure all services approved are rendered by the authorization expiration date so you don’t lose out on revenue, and clients don’t fall back on their treatment plans.

4. Insurance Auditing

Insurance audits can be stressful, especially when you are unprepared. Audits require multiple levels of financial information, and it can be a nightmare to gather this after the fact. They can also cause you to spend countless hours tracking down therapists and clinicians to request files, assessments, timesheets, session notes, clinical data, and even client signatures.

If you bill or plan to bill Medicaid, it can get even more complicated because each state has its own unique requirements. For instance, Pennsylvania requires clinicians to have clinical notes stored for auditing, and if not available, you’re simply fined. Talk about a low blow to a small (or bigger) business! Additionally, a general cloud service solution presents its own problems when storing clinical information and these services may not provide the exact information auditors need for each of your clients. Not to mention they can be costly; some charging around $12.50 per user on a monthly basis!

A few ways CentralReach can help…

Billing and Insurance: Customizable configuration of billing settings give you control over billing processes no matter how many payors you support

Scheduling: Seamless scheduling in a variety of calendar views offering complete visibility over all team members to successfully book appointments

HIPAA Violations: One single secured, organized and protected system to maintain all health records

Insurance Auditing: Unlimited storage of files and organized user accounts to maintain all client information in one centralized and protected location, you can quickly access whenever needed.

These are just a few ways you can cut out time-consuming paperwork, tedious administrative tasks, and streamline your ABA practice across the board using technology.

For more steps and information on how CentralReach’s end-to-end platform can help you eliminate the pile of papers on your desk, ditch the manual data collection and go from an administrative nightmare to superior outcomes, download our full whitepaper for free!