Long Term Care Software Vendors: Which is Right for You?

Long term care software automates the operations of nursing homes, SNFs, and other long term care facilities. Traditional paper documentation with handwritten, manual entries was often inaccurate and illegible, resulting in medical errors and excessive paperwork. This became a driving force to establish nursing home management software that could incorporate multiple functions, thus improving the efficiency and workflow in long term care facilities.

Of course, as with all new product development, the initial phase of long term care EMR software included some design flaws, and systems often proved to be inflexible, limited, or unable to meet the needs of customers. A report by the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association highlighted the voices of nurses frustrated with EHRs and the failure to deliver on what caretakers needed from their software.

Modern long term care software vendors have managed the backlash of negative opinions by giving healthcare providers a voice. Forward-thinking companies, like Experience Care (more below) invested time into documenting feedback and incorporating it into its updates. This, in turn, enables them to provide a better product tailored to the client’s needs and to achieve greater customer satisfaction from nurses who use the software daily.

The task now for long term care EHR software companies is to continue increasing the accuracy of documentation while reducing administration duties to improve workflow efficiency. Below, we have highlighted some key long term care software vendors in the current marketplace.

1. Experience Care’s NetSolutions

This nursing home software is user-friendly and customizable, with proven results from CNAs and nurses who have embraced this long term care software system as part of their daily routines.

Products offered include:

• General Financials:The long term care software streamlines all financial processes for SNFs by seamlessly integrating workflows, billing, and financial statements into the existing software structures. They also offer a value-based pricing system, or, the option to pay only in accordance with the beds that are filled. This can save a facility $25 a month per resident.
• Revenue Cycle Management: RCM software maximizes reimbursements for nursing homes by optimizing cash flows, thus allowing the nursing home staff to focus more on resident care
• Hospital and Physician Referral Portal: This referral portal helps streamline the referral process of patients from hospitals to SNFs. Data is transferred electronically between a hospital’s EHR directly to a long term care facility’s EHR system. This improves communication between healthcare providers.

Experience Care prides itself on its configurable and user-friendly long term care EHR software. Having an engaging dashboard and a patient-centered Kardex allows users to pull resident data quickly and easily, thus improving efficiency.

The long term care software also provides exceptional user support with dedicated client service representatives located throughout the U.S. working in all time zones from 5 A.M. Eastern to 8 P.M. Eastern. This means real human interactions with the support team rather than an automated telephone service, thus resulting in faster response times and better customer care. There is also a customer service log that is checked nightly to ensure all voicemails and emails are documented and handled accordingly.

Another differentiating element is Experience Care’s innovative, customer-driven products that are the product of monthly user meetings with the CEO, COO, and other industry leaders. These sessions allow the Experience Care team to listen to client suggestions and concerns so that they can execute beta version updates to the senior living software and its features. This engaging approach has resulted in high customer satisfaction and innovative new features, like the electronic Kardex , a Fixed Assets module, and the new CareMetrics analytics tool .

Pros of Experience Care’s NetSolutions

Cons of Experience Care’s NetSolutions

• No free version
• No free trial

2. MatrixCare Skilled Nursing Software

Products offered include:

• Life Plan Community Software – A cloud-based, integrated software to simplify administration for clinical, financial, and operational tasks. All care setting information is stored in a single record so users can view it on a desktop or mobile device. This nursing home software product is commonly found in senior living and skilled nursing facilities.
• Care Network Solution This includes all out-of-hospital care services , such as home health, hospice, palliative, and private duty care. It is a cloud-based software that is compatible with iOS and Android devices to maximize patient management. This nursing home charting software allows easy flow of information between physicians, case managers/discharge planners, and organizations to provide better care for patients.
• Care Community Management – Users have access to all medical providers, so hospitals and ACOs can monitor the quality of care, even after residents are discharged. This useful feature allows doctors to monitor changes in their patient’s condition across the continuum of care and intervene if necessary.

Pros of MatrixCare

• No setup fee
• 24/7 support
• All data is backed-up in the cloud
• Compatible with iOS and Android devices

Cons of MatrixCare

3. Netsmart

Some of the products offered by Netsmart include:

• EMR/EHR– This feature offers workflow and functionality through their key component, the CareFabric platform. The platform is integrated to transfer information across communities to ensure collaboration and communication between providers is smooth and efficient.
• Care Plan Management – The software allows users to track services and treatments for individuals across different care settings while reducing duplicate services and simplifying care transitions with secure data transfers. The integrated care coordination management also allows facilities to connect with external providers so that lab results, HIE information, and other data are incorporated into the workflow and treatment plans for residents
• Managed Care Organizations (MCOs) – This is a web-based integration that helps to reduce fraud, waste, and abuse. It is connected with over one hundred electronic health records (EHR) and electronic visit verification (EVV) apps checking for compliance with authorizations, verifying regulatory compliance, and analyzing service deliveries without any manual reporting.

Pros of Netsmart

• Compatibility and support with Android and iOS devices
• Chat support
• HIPAA compliant

Cons of Netsmart

4. American HealthTech

American HealthTech software solutions include:

• Care Management – A web-based AHT (a fully-featured Assisted Living Software) designed to give users a complete, real-time view of resident information. It supports physician mobility from mobile devices with functions that include e-signing, smart charting (point of care), ePrescribing, and supply tracking to ensure payments are properly recorded.
• Financial and Enterprise Management – This is used in conjunction with the Revenue Cycle Management (RCM). It controls all cash and cost transactions that are configured with workflows, accounts payable, and the 3R management suite to ensure staff is compensated accordingly.
• Revenue Cycle Management – This tool helps to manage a healthcare provider’s revenue cycle, from admissions and eligibility verification to claims submission and processing. Key functions include: admissions analysis, eligibility verification for admissions and billing workflows, and accounts receivable to maximize cash flow.

Pros of American HealthTech

• 24/7 live-rep customer support
• Chat support
• Essential data is backed-up in the cloud
• Compatible with Windows software
• In-person training and webinars are available

Cons of American HealthTech

Choosing Between Long Term Care Software Vendors

When choosing between different nursing home software options and long term care software vendors, facilities must decide which meets their individual needs while balancing cost-effective practices. Some long term care acute providers, like Cerner and Epic , provide software solutions and products. However, the National Library of Medicine notes that these EHRs are challenged by making electronic data usable , interoperable, and compatible with the patient-driven payment model that is used in many facilities. To this day, there are still many barriers that need to be addressed, such as physician dissatisfaction with EHRs, overregulation, and cost.

While healthcare providers acknowledge there is a need for change, it is up to the software providers to adapt their software models and features to meet the current requirements of facilities. With each passing day, more healthcare staff are accepting the use of EHR technology. That means that, to accommodate this shift and the broader acceptance of nursing computer software, your facility will need to provide sufficient training and refresher training courses for all staff members who use long term care software. Only then can facilities maximize their long term care software, when all staff members are knowledgeable enough to address and resolve software problems as they occur.