How are today’s long-term care organizations successfully optimizing talent while addressing day to day operating requirements?
Oriol Health Care, a Massachusetts-based long-term care organization with over 200 beds serves as an example of what is possible. After struggling with rising overtime costs and changing resident acuity, the long-term care provider discovered how to make key operational changes that dramatically increased efficiency as well as ensured in complied with evolving Centers for Medicare and Medicaid requirements. Together these changes enabled Oriol to increase quality of resident care by enabling it to better support fluctuating PPD demands and keep the right staff in the right positions, three shifts a day, 365 days a year.
It starts with engaging and optimizing the workforce
Oriol Health Care is proud of its highly engaged and dedicated team of care providers, who are committed to quality resident care. While that’s a big advantage in a field where employee turnover can be a challenge, it doesn’t eliminate the need for systems designed to optimize the workforce in alignment with the corporate mission.
Workforce management and regulatory reporting
Like many long-term care organizations, Oriol was faced with the need to submit new regulatory reports including Payroll-Based Journal Reporting (PBJ) for CMS. One of the key Payroll-Based Journal challenges they faced -- how to use existing HR, payroll and attendance systems to submit a successful Payroll-Based Journal journal report to CMS. A task they realized would not be feasible with their current infrastructure.
Moving forward with new technology
Oriol recognized that their existing time tracking, HR, payroll and scheduling solutions were no longer meeting their business needs. They lacked the usability, scheduling features, and sufficient Payroll-Based Journal reporting capabilities. The legacy systems were not fully integrated and could not provide the desired reporting and analytics from a single repository of real-time data.
Dealing with labor costs that comprised 85% of operating expenses
As Oriol Health Care analyzed their rising labor costs, which comprised 85 percent of their operating expenses, they realized their current technology prevented them from identifying and resolving workforce inefficiencies. They believed a best-in-class workforce management solution was essential.
Oriol began an in-depth evaluation of market trends and competing workforce management products. The provider defined the key requirements:
Oriol's key evaluation criteria for HR, scheduling and attendance solution
- Fully integrated solution that operated on a single, unified platform
- Intuitive, easy-to-use system
- A solution that was custom-built for the long-term care industry
- A robust scheduling solution
- A vendor with a proven track record with successful Payroll-Based Journal submissions
- A scheduling system with the ability to calculate department level PPD based on actual census data
Oriol ultimately chose SmartLinx as their next generation solution for HR, payroll, time and attendance, scheduling and Payroll-Based Journal (PBJ) reporting.
Reaping the results
Reduced overtime costs by 25 percent
After the SmartLinx implementation, one area of return on investment for Oriol was a 25 percent reduction in overtime costs.
"SmartLinx has met and exceeded our expectations! Within three months of going live we have cut more than 25 percent of our overtime spend and now have visibility to manage our facilities and staff to our operational standards,” said Beth Cogavin, Chief Financial Officer of Oriol Health Care.
The Oriol team also appreciated the ability to view real-time data and create staffing schedules that supported changing census values and resident needs.
Driving employee engagement and business success
What started as a project to submit Payroll Based Journal reports to CMS evolved into a workforce transformation with enhanced business outcomes including significant operating cost savings.
Are you optimizing your workforce to deliver business results?
Are there untapped areas of cost savings and operational efficiency? Are you delivering optimal patient care with your existing talent? Have you successfully submitted a payroll-based journal report to CMS? These are just a few of the questions to consider as you evaluate your HR, Payroll and Time and Attendance needs.
Additional Resources
To learn more about the SmartLinx Payroll-Based Journal:
- Download the SmartLinx Payroll-Based Journal brochure
- Watch the 7 Secrets of Payroll-Based Journal Success
- Read the Oriol Health Care Case Study
- Replay the SmartLinx webinar Perspective on PBJ -- Hear It from CMS and Other Experts
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