Home Care Glossary

Essential Home Care Terms

 

Agency Management Software (AMS) or Agency Management System 

• Your agency management software is where your team spends their time with tasks like scheduling, billing, EVV, care planning, and more.

   

Applicant Tracking System (ATS) 

• Home care agencies should use an applicant tracking system or ATS to track new caregiver applicants and candidates as they go through the hiring process.

   

Activities of Daily Living

• The tasks that individuals of all ages and abilities need to perform in order to live, including dressing, bathing, eating, toileting, continence, and transferring. These are the building blocks of client care plans.

   

Authorization 

• Approval from a health plan or other payer source (like the VA or Medicaid) that may be required before you get a service or fill a prescription in order for the service or prescription to be covered by your plan.

   

Automated Rules Engine

• A billing feature exclusive to CareTime V3 that offers users the ability to set rules for each payer, making it easy to manage and get paid by multiple payers at the click of a button.

   

Background Screening

• Your caregivers are expected to be qualified and experienced. Proper background screenings not only ensure compliance but also family and client satisfaction.

   

Billing While You Sleep 

• A CareTime V3 feature that offers home care agencies the ability to wake up to notifications of claims submitted on their behalf overnight automatically.

   

Caregiver Mobile App

• Agency management systems should come with a caregiver mobile app that allows caregivers to clock in and out, view their schedules, and more.

 

Care Matching

• CareTime V3 uses exclusive care-matching technology to help you set criteria that best match caregivers with the skills and preferences your clients have. 

   

Care Plan

• Documents (preferably electronic) that contain information that outlines a client’s physical, emotional, and social care needs. It can also include ways to address family needs, a client’s interests, and other important information like primary care provider or specialist contacts. 

Claims Dashboard

• The All-in-one-view Claims Dashboard is an exclusive feature to CareTime V3, giving you real-time updates and visibility into the status of all of your EVV and claims information. Never be left in the dark again.our agency management software is where your team spends their time with tasks like scheduling, billing, EVV, care planning, and more.

   

Consumer-Directed Care 

• Consumer-Directed Care is typically funded by the state, in a model where caregivers are treated as independent contractors. Home care agencies may be contracted by the state to provide and supervise a caregiver or act as a fiscal intermediary.

Caregiver Registry

• A caregiver registry uses model of home care that matches caregivers on a 1099 basis with clients directly to negotiate rates, scheduling, and more.

   

Electronic Visit Verification (EVV)

• Electronic visit verification or EVV was enacted by the 21st Century Cures Act, to collect and match data from in-home care visits. Implementation of these systems is mandatory for Medicaid providers. It’s also helpful to have for private pay, consumer-directed, and other third-party payers as well.

 

Electronic Health Record (EHR)

• An electronic health record (EHR) system is used to store client information. Your agency management system should be able to generate electronic health records for each of your clients.

   

Payment Processing

• Payment processors help you offer multiple payment options for families and other third-party payer sources on their terms.

   

Scheduling

• Scheduling features are an important function of an agency management system that matches caregivers with the right-fit clients and vice versa.