One of the most useful ways that software and technology can be used by a nursing home to help keep a lid on overtime expenses is with nursing home scheduling software. Over the past several years I’ve been asked by clients and family and friends to help them with transactions related to nursing homes. One client had me keep tabs on the nursing home bills for his elderly mother. I had to sort through them, send some of them to various insurance companies, authorize payment of others through a trust checking account, and weed out the duplicate copies that were mailed out. It was amazing how many duplicate copies of charges were being sent out by the nursing home. I don’t know if they had a problem with their invoicing system or if they were trying to fleece my client, but I had to pour over a lot of paperwork and challenge a lot of duplicate charges!
One of the things that really shocked me was the charge on the bills for a simple beauty salon visit by his mother – the charge was $300 for a beauty salon visit! And the woman went to the beauty salon twice a month! I remember bringing that charge to the attention of my client, and he said he was aware of it and the charge was right. I just cannot even imagine having enough money to pay $300 twice a month to have my hair done! All I can say is that it must be nice to be able to afford such an expensive nursing home!
If and when I find myself in the position of having to help my own mother find a nursing home, I’m sorry to say that we will not be able to afford such a nice place that we can give her a beauty salon appointment twice a month for $300. We will have to find one that takes good care of the patients, but keeps costs as reasonable as possible. One way that technology can help with that is with the use of nurse staffing software to ensure that there are enough nurses on duty all of the time. I don’t want to send her to a place that neglects their patients because they are understaffed.