Technology continues improving how we run hospice organizations by introducing simple solutions to everyday problems. The individuals from the medical provider level of care to the administrators are forced to handle multiple responsibilities simultaneously.
These responsibilities favor providing the best care possible to all patients but are undoubtedly pressing. Unfortunately, as time progresses, the number of responsibilities resting on the hospice team’s shoulders continues to increase, causing severe strain on productivity.
Durable Medical Equipment, or DME, is an extraordinarily critical component of hospice care because patients rely on specific equipment for everyday life. Managing DME operations is difficult because the equipment constantly moves in and out, making it challenging to stay updated on current equipment statuses. DME Management can be streamlined through specific tools that allow faster and more accurate technology.
What is DME Management?
As warehouses keep track of supply and moving logistics, DME management has a near-identical approach. Hospice teams are constantly placing DME orders for their patients and sending other equipment back to vendors.
One of the most time-sensitive areas of DME logistics involves tracking delivery statuses. Patients must have their equipment delivered at the right place and time as part of their care plan.
Hospice care teams must keep a close eye on their logistics to minimize disruptions in DME orders that can otherwise considerably delay patient care. For hospice teams to manage their patient’s DME, they must implement specific processes and systems to monitor progress.
Importance of Streamlining a DME Management Processes
- Knowing when and where patient DME will be delivered will determine the speed of a patient’s care plan. If patient equipment takes a long time to deliver or, even worse, gets delayed unknowingly, the care plan will halt.
- Streamlining DME processes will provide your hospice team with another form of organization and accountability. Everyone can keep track of the same orders to minimize confusion and stay consistent with care plans.
- Your team will produce better results when their DME management is highly efficient. Productivity will no longer be governed by small, extra steps while accomplishing the same result.
Do I Need a DME Management Solution?
Every hospice runs through its processes differently, so the need for a DME solution depends on current management. The average hospice can benefit from improving their DME management because it’s best practice to explore new ways to innovate constantly.
Ask yourself the following questions to help decide if you might need to look into a DME management solution:
- Are my current processes maximizing my hospice’s DME potential?
- Is there anything my team might mention since they interact daily with DME processes?
- Am I allowing our organization a chance to grow if I don’t explore this opportunity?
Everyone’s answers will vary based on each organization’s specific processes. But even if you feel your DME management is as efficient as it will ever be, exploring different approaches is always recommended. You never know what you uncover about your management processes when you think about how your operations compare to other systems.
What You Can Expect From a DME Management Solution
Implementing a DME management solution will benefit your hospice organization in more than one way. Many areas of your hospice rely on DME management to stay consistent or risk affecting productivity. Hospices cannot reduce productivity since many different aspects of patient care are non-stop and constantly shifting.
Here are some benefits of incorporating a DME management solution into your hospice.
Optimized Logistics
The most impactful and immediate benefit of DME management solutions offers streamlined logistics. DME management solutions consolidate the different steps and areas of ordering and tracking DME. Additionally, they will allow quicker communication between care teams and vendors to update last-minute changes.
DME management solutions make logistics seamless by simplifying the entire process from order to delivery. A more granular approach to managing DME orders paints a clearer picture for the team.
More Efficient Accounting Processes
Hospice accounting teams keep track of the entire organization's bookkeeping categories. It can be hard to manage every moving piece effectively since hospice care is around the clock.
Even in the digital world, accounting teams still need new and better ways to organize and update books. DME management solutions offer everything accounting teams need to know about their current invoicing status in one location.
Additionally, they will no longer worry about tracking down different invoices from various vendors and their billing process.
Happier Employees
Just as patient care needs to be a priority, keeping employees happy must be at the top of hospice leaders’ teams. The best way to ensure your employees are continually satisfied with their job is when they know management is looking out for them.
Nothing shows you have your employees' best interest in mind when they see their leaders looking for new ways to make their jobs easier. Patient care demands a lot from hospice employees, so they need systems that encourage efficiency to help ease this added pressure.
When your team has efficient DME processes, they can save more time. Instead of running through extra steps to place an order, they can order DME in under a minute and reallocate time.
Better Patient Care
Do you think your hospice’s current patient care can be optimized? To provide the highest quality of care to patients, hospices need to reapproach patient care continuously. As patients continue their care plan, they may require repeated orders or new equipment depending on their conditions.
Most patients rely on durable medical equipment to help maintain a happy and healthy life. Having the ability to get the right equipment delivered without disruption is going to ensure patient care continues to run smoothly.
DME management solutions will assist teams constantly striving to expand their capacity to provide a high level of care for every patient.
Why Qualis?
Qualis has provided hospice agencies nationwide with DME management solutions for over a decade. Qualis was designed to simplify DME operations and provide your team with the tools that will get the results your team needs to succeed.
Let’s explore some unique features that greatly benefit your hospice DME operations.
Real Industry Experts
The Qualis DME management solution was designed by a team of industry-leading experts with real experience. The Qualis leadership team consists of seasoned hospice veterans with in-field experience.
One of the unique aspects of Qualis is the team’s dynamic experience consisting of medical providers and former hospice administrative leaders. This real-world experience is critical to providing hospices with a DME solution that works for them.
The team uses its experience to collectively design and consistently innovate Qualis’s DME management solutions.
Seamless Interface
Qualis aims to improve DME operations to make your team more efficient and save time. To accomplish this goal, hospice teams need the entire process simplified, starting with the layout of the DME management interface.
The interface hospice teams use designed with simplicity to help navigate ordering and tracking durable medical equipment. Instead of moving through multiple pages to place an order, the Qualis interface combines various steps into one, cutting out unnecessary time wasting.
Additionally, to make operations even more effortless, Qualis’s interface is highly flexible and will adapt to your hospice’s specific requirements for organization and layout.
Extensive Vendor List
When it comes to helping the lower bottom line every month, hospice teams need more than one vendor option when ordering DME. Most hospices are confined to only a few resources for vendor availability; some hospices might only have one vendor agreement.
Putting a restrain on vendor availability is forcing DME operations to miss massive time and money-saving opportunities. One of Qualis’s unique benefits is having the ability to choose from a long list of vendors for patient DME.
Your hospice will gain access to a list of over nine hundred different vendors spread across the nation. This vendor availability will help save patients from waiting for a single vendor to fulfill an out-of-stock order.
Now care teams can find cheaper DME options and faster delivery to benefit everyone. While hospices will have access to multiple DME vendor options, they will only need to worry about one contract, invoice, ordering platform, and contact for DME help.
Your Next Steps
Getting started is easy after you decide you’re ready to incorporate Qualis into your organization. Our team offers integration training to ensure a smooth transition from your old systems to Qualis while not disrupting DME ordering in the process.
Contact our team if you’re ready to learn more about how Qualis can integrate flawlessly into your hospice organization.
