Virginia: Complexities of Back-to-Back/Contiguous Visits
Overview
Scheduling back-to-back (also referred to as contiguous) visits is a simple process in Ankota. To ensure two back-to-back visits flow from one visit into the next,
- Schedule two visits of different visit types (for example, Personal Care and Respite)
- Assign the two visits to the same caregiver and client
- Schedule the two visits without a time gap in the middle (end time of first visit = start time of second visit)
- Both visits must be scheduled before the caregiver clocks into the first visit
- If you add the second visit after the caregiver has clocked into the first visit, the two visits will not be treated as one visit. The caregiver must clock out of the first visit and into the second new visit in that case.
See this initial article on back-to-back visits here. See below for the additional complexities of Virginia.
This article includes:
Longer Second Visits & Automatic Closure of Unbillable/Unpayable Visits
On Hold Caregiver Closure of Contiguous Visits
Longer Second Visits & Automatic Closure of Unbillable/Unpayable Visits
In Virginia, it is more common to pay caregivers only up to the scheduled length of a visit. This means that typically, Respite "safety net" visits must be scheduled longer so that if they are needed, the caregiver will be paid appropriately. If these Respite visits are not used, that will be correctly reflected.
For example:
Example A, unbilled Second Visit (unused second visit):
- SCHEDULED: Personal Care 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. + 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Respite, 3 hours duration
- ACTUAL: 7:55 a.m. to 8:45 a.m., 50 minutes duration
- BILLED/PAID?: Personal Care = billed and paid 50 minutes (rounded if your company rounds), Respite = not billed, not paid
Example B, billed Second Visit (appropriate billing of both visits):
- SCHEDULED: Personal Care 8:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. + 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. Respite, 3 hours duration
- ACTUAL: 7:55 a.m. to 9:55 a.m., 2 hours duration
- BILLED/PAID?: Personal Care = billed and paid 1 hour, Respite = billed and paid 1 hour
DMAS90 Functionality
For Virginia organizations, contiguous visits for Personal Care and Respite will show on the DMAS90 in their separate visit type pages. Please note that for any care plan items to show on the Respite page, those care plan items must be added on during the telephony or mobile app reporting process. Click here for more on Virginia Respite reporting. For more on DMAS forms in general in Ankota, see this DMAS article.
If you have scheduled back-to-back Personal Care and Respite visits according to the rules above, Personal Care and Respite will naturally separate out in the DMAS90 to separate pages.
Please note that Respite does take a few minutes after closure to reflect the adjusted Respite times, so please give the Ankota system time to run the update before expecting to see the visits correctly reflected on the calendar or on the DMAS90. (Five minutes is usually sufficient.)
Check back soon for a multi-perspective video showing the scheduler's view of building back-to-back visits, the caregiver's perspective of clocking in and out, and then the administrator's perspective of reviewing the DMAS90 of the back-to-back visits.
On Hold Caregiver Closure of Contiguous Visits
Note that contiguous visits which are returned to caregivers as On Hold visits (see more about the On Hold manual caregiver closure feature here) will allow users to report their times in a single visit.
The On Hold visit will also indicate that the entry is for a contiguous block of 2 or more visits. (In the case below, this is a combination of an 8-4 Personal Care and a 4-6 Respite.)
Based on the reported duration, the minutes and care plan items will be correctly divided.
