Our agency tried to use the above option in the company setup and found there to be issues when the employees would work over the scheduled time. The authorization listing would not show the correct amount of units on the schedule and evaluating the selected authorization would not resolve the issue.
We currently have a ticket open for this issue and that is not going well also.
Our agency had decided to change this option, since there are issues when it is selected, and the "engineering team" has asked how this issue was developed and to replicate it.
I had explained in the ticket that while our agency would like to use this option and need the source of the issue resolved, our agency has worked around the issue by selecting the alternate option for the time being.
Has any other agency had issues with this scheduling option? If yes, were you given any resolution on how to correct or prevent the employee from working over the authorized units?
With our example the employee had worked over the scheduled time early in the month and the Axxess system did not give us indication that the scheduled time at the end of the month would allow the employee to work over the authorized units allowed for the client service.
Aloha -
We use the alert notification that allows the scheduler to continue to schedule.
Most of our authorizations are hours per week. The only time this alert comes up is when the task is being scheduled or if the scheduled task is being revised/updated/saved.
For example if the patient gets 10 hours/week. We schedule:
* Then the scheduler would adjust this task to be - Wednesday - 2 hours
The authorization List will show: (we can see an issue here is that it only shows authorized units, scheduled units and available units. It does not show ACTUALLY WORKED units or BILLED units)
However, if we have that above schedule and the actual times worked was:
Authorization List now shows:
Finally, if the Wednesday shift is completed as scheduled -
I find this interesting because we had a ticket out asking why the authorization list would not show negative units when authorizations are gone over. It had been fixed but maybe it had reverted.
I think what is not being taken into account are the combination of times, totals and rounding that are involved in one shift.
THEN you have the same complexity with unit counting in scheduling, authorizations and billing.
This is a long winded way to say that our agency also noticed a ton of inconsistencies and gaps in features.
The alert will only show while actively creating/updating the task. The authorization parameters need to match - so the authorization should have x units per MONTH for it to trigger the alerts (We've only used per week, unsure if there is a difference with per month).
The only solution we have at the moment is for our schedulers to fine tooth comb every single shift every day in order to catch overages and manually update future shifts in hopes we can stay accurately within authorization.
I'll be submitting this comment as a ticket. Thank you as always Terrence!
HELP-229391
Any updates on that ticket. I didn't realize before how this is basically the exact same issue we have. In one agency we have the company setup option set to warn the scheduler. With this option, when properly refreshed, the over authorized visits will Red-Ring.
Our other agency has the other company setup: Alert the scheduler and prevent.. With this company the behavior is very similar except asking if the scheduler wants to still schedule, they are prompted with a message that says they cannot schedule.
The bigger problem with this setting is that when a visit is adjusted for additional time or an aide works over the scheduled time and the units are all scheduled for the month, the worked & scheduled time for the month exceeds the authorization. The visit(s) that would exceed this authorization DO NOT get Red-Ringed! There is NO way we know when these months are over the authorized units or not. If we view the authorization, sometimes it shows available units (which you outlined that also) and this is simply not true. We would have to manually calculate every client every month to know for certain.
I have a ticket open on the subject also: HELP-236965. I had another one or two in the past and somehow they were dismissed as resolved. They really weren't resolved at all.
As I'm sure you are aware, this is a big problem and makes the work for scheduling 5 times harder. I really hope Axxess is paying attention to both the tickets and this community. This one major issue may be the straw the breaks the camel's back.
@Nicole I wish the best for you and your agency!
Aloha @Terrence
The ticket we had submitted, HELP-229391, was followed up on for clarification and was then marked as an enhancement.
Although frustrating, I can understand the complexity of implementing the features. There are a ton of moving parts that need to be accounted for and tracked.
I do hope these things will be reviewed and prioritized as it directly impacts the administrative time and cost & loss of revenue.
Thank you for always having these open communications Terrence!
How can they even consider the issue of Authorizations not working correctly as an enhancement? That just paints the picture a little more clearly.
It sure feels like Axxess is just saying "Deal with it". This is not good, not good at all.
I have had tickets in the past that were just dismissed as an enhancement. I had to fight to show that the ticket had described a problem that needed fixed. Some of those battles finally got resolved properly, but not all of them.
I'm not going to let this issue go. It has already impacted our company and causes a lot of extra work. I will update you on any progress that is made.