Four EVV Challenges and How Addressing Them Can Improve Care and Operations

The electronic visit verification (EVV) mandate has been in effect for personal care services for more
than a year. The January 1, 2023, deadline (with a good faith exemption deadline of January 1, 2024) for
home health services is quickly approaching. That leaves little time for providers to meet compliance
deadlines published by states.

Now is a good time to evaluate the main challenges payers and providers face in the EVV space, and
how addressing them can help improve their operations, enhance outcomes for the populations they
serve and ensure access to care is not disrupted.

1. Staying ahead of the curve

    The pandemic showed us that the landscape of healthcare can shift at the drop of a hat. Payers and providers need
    technology that can help them adapt to ever-changing regulations and reimbursement models.

The best way to ensure success is to invest in innovative technology that’s easy to adopt and can evolve and
    grow as healthcare evolves. With interoperability and access to care at the forefront of our development, Netsmart is able
            to offer multiple solution sets to meet the emerging needs in modern healthcare.

2. Effective reporting

Anyone can collect data and call it reporting, but few vendors can truly support connecting the dots between collection
            and action. Millions of usable data points are collected every day but there are very few programs that can take a deep dive
            into what that data represents to support an extremely vulnerable population.

Netsmart continuously refines reporting capabilities to help streamline operational efficiencies of EVV. As a result, we can
            help you act on that data with proactive measures that improve outcomes for your members, enhancing overall quality and
            provider adoption. Having real-time data gives care coordinators at the payer level access to clinical decisions.
            This is an important aspect of operationalizing EVV.

3. Workforce retention

The programs affected by EVV have been facing staffing crises for years due to reimbursement rates, burnout and
            regulatory changes. How do you improve retention with one of the highest turnover rates in the country? With innovative,
            user-friendly technology that increases efficiency in daily workflows.

The Netsmart solution standardizes billing practices, simplifies visibility into employees’ day-to-day activities, ensures
            employees are paid correctly and on time, and ultimately increases workplace satisfaction. Easing the administrative
            burden also can help agencies and caregivers provide quality, consistent care to keep more members in the comfort
            of their homes long term. Agency staff want a simple, light-weight solution that is easy to learn and can help them
            complete their day-to-day work and get paid. A simple app can help members get the care they need, and providers
            deliver the services expected.

4. Compliance

Payers and providers must adhere to many aspects of EVV compliance, including using appropriate technology,
            program adoption, key performance indicators (KPI) reporting and claims submissions.

The first crucial step in EVV compliance is an adequately trained and informed provider network. Both payers
            and providers can be challenged to share information whether it’s a payer announcing a policy change or an
            agency keeping their care team trained on the new workflow. Open communication and forums are the
            keys to success for program integrity.

We’ve seen that markets with the greatest success in compliance have robust communication plans. At the payer level,
            having one public-facing site for the provider network to access updated information and FAQ documents is key.
            Town hall sessions with the EVV vendor (virtual or in-person) have proven to be valuable resources for
            payers and providers to share pain points and successes. Stakeholder meetings driven by provider
            associations are invaluable to vendors to keep up to date with where the providers are.

Providers: Standardizing your training plan for caregivers can help bridge gaps that may occur with turnover.
            Training effectively and often is the best practice. Netsmart offers an abundance of training materials, training manuals,
            click-through tutorials and videos for users to access any time and can prevent losing the momentum for direct care access

At Netsmart, we continuously work with our clients to help them leverage EVV as a tool to support caregiver workflow efficiencies, staff retention, improve patient outcomes and drive streamlined homecare ecosystem. Integrating EVV with claims processing, social determinants of health observations, advanced integration capabilities, and real-time data collection and sharing will help shift the VV from compliance to productivity, driving health-related metrics at the aggregated level. We continue to advance the visit verification solution, anticipating advancement in the industry for value-based care to manage the high-risk cohorts and population levels.