Missouri Agencies Solve the Trimmed Minutes Problem

Homecare agencies in Missouri face the unique challenge of trimmed minutes – those pesky extra minutes that get rounded off when tracking time to the nearest 15-minute interval. Right now, every agency is required to bill eMOmed in 15-minute units and must round down, not up. Some simple addition will show how quickly those trimmed minutes can add up into significant revenue loss, all for services that have been delivered. Those excess minutes aren’t intended to be wasted – agencies can bucket those trimmed minutes and submit them for payment – but that process is a little complicated.

Right now, managing trimmed minutes is a painstaking and mostly manual process. Every trimmed minute needs to be broken down into separate buckets based on service type. For example, consider Mary Jones, a caregiver who had several visits over a week-long period and resulted in the following trimmed minutes:

Currently, most homecare agencies would need to track their EVV system and manually map out the minutes by service type. With HHAeXchange, this data is already in the system and can trigger the right billing process. For example, the homemaking bucket has exceeded a 15-minute increment, and can now be billed through eMOmed. The system would keep those remaining three minutes in the bucket as Mary accumulates more in subsequent visits.

HHAeXchange not only removes the manual nature of monitoring trimmed minutes, it ensures that you stay compliant. With HHAeXchange:

• Buckets are kept separate for each client/consumer by service type (PC, PCA, HM, Respite) and cannot be combined
• Whenever 15 minutes accumulate in a bucket, a unit of that type can be “added” in to the next visit of that type
• Accumulated minutes do NOT cross the end of a month – remaining minutes at the end of a month that are not sufficient to make up an entire unit are lost
• You can’t bill more than what is authorized for a month – ensuring you stay compliant.

Trimmed minutes can be an important chunk of revenue for an agency. With HHAeXchange, you can keep track of them without allocating significant employee time to the process.

Is your agency effectively managing trimmed minutes? Let’s connect and discuss how we can help you get paid for the service minutes that you deliver.