Questions are rolling in from providers about how to get the material needed for bid submissions. Rock-Pond wants you all to know that the competitive bidding process does not have to be a nightmare! We have it covered. Rock-Pond Solutions is actively working with The MedGroup and MHA to fully understand the impact of competitive bidding on the home infusion and HME industries. Rock-Pond Reports customers and MHA members with the MHA Business Solution Center have a powerful report to give them the information they need to complete Form B in the CMS Competitive Bid process.

“The Rock-Pond Competitive Bidding report went beyond providing my revenue by zip code. It already had the competitive bidding areas (CBA) defined so I could easily manage my Medicare and non-Medicare revenue grouped by these CBA’s. This saved me a tremendous amount of time in completing Form B in the bidding process. “ Hospital Based Home Infusion Provider

Our reports utilize the data in your CPR+ or Mediware software to produce the powerful and accurate information necessary for these submissions. To view the Rock-Pond Report for your system, click below:

• CPR+
• HomecareNet
• Ascend – not available at this time. Email us if you are interested in this report and we will get this done for you.

Do YOU have tough questions about Competitive Bidding Round 2? Contact us and we will help you find the answers to these questions. We will provide you with the Competitive Bidding information you need from the data you’ve got!  For more information about questions to ask before and after you bid, review this post from September 2010.

One of the challenges of traditional software reporting is running a report literally locks up your system.

Have you ever been viewing a report and someone asked you to look something up for them?  Let’s say you are analyzing claim denials and a patient calls with a question about their account.  To answer their question you have to close your report, look up the information for them and then rerun the report and try to remember what page you were on.

The Rock-Pond Information Center solves this problem.  Each time you run a report it opens a new instance on your task bar allowing you to run as many reports as you want, run one report as many different ways as you want and use any other program you want, including CPR+, HomecareNet or Ascend, without closing your report or losing your place. When you think about it, this design feature alone might improve the productivity of your staff and pay for your investment in Rock-Pond Reports.  The hundreds of reports that give you powerful information you are not able to get from your system will be a bonus!

At Rock-Pond, we are dependent on the Rock-Pond Information Center to get the information we need from many different data sources.  I noticed how many reports I had open on my desktop and realized how much I relied on this feature.  If your system can’t do this, you are missing out.

Competitive Bidding Round 2 is in full swing.  Providers in the affected areas of the country are in the bidder registration process if they are going to submit a bid.  Rock-Pond Solutions recently gathered with a group of home care providers at the Mediware Conference to discuss the impact on their organizations and offer some strategies for working through this process.  Rock-Pond has assisted providers in Round 1 with CMS reporting requirements and has expanded our reporting offering to assist in the round 2 process as the number of services covered has expanded.

The following are some questions to ask during the process.  Our Rock-Pond Reports product has the reports you’ll need to get the answers to these questions.   As always, you’ll be able to pull these answers directly from the data in your CPR+, HomecareNet, Ascend or Caretinuum software.

Pre-Bid questions

• Should I register to submit a bid?
• What is the financial impact if I do not get the bid?
• What price should I bid
• What is my mix of Medicare patients in the CBA’s I service for the services covered by Competitive bidding?
• What other services (non-competitive bidding) are these patients being provided?
• What referral sources will be impacted

Post-Bid questions

• Changes to the intake processes
• Changes in the pricing and billing processes
• Reporting requirements to CMS
• Ongoing business analysis on the impact of competitive bidding

We’ve always thought of our company as the DATA company.  Our customers and others in the home infusion industry often refer to Rock-Pond Solutions as the REPORT company.  Our customers use Mediware and CPR+ software and we help them get the information they need out of the data they’ve got.  That’s what we do best and it’s what separates us from the rest.

As we’ve put together a new marketing plan we’ve come to realize that more than writing reports and delivering the INFORMATION YOU NEED from the DATA YOU’VE GOT, Rock-Pond is a company that helps people solve tough problems.  We looked at the history of our company and the tough problems our industry has faced during this time.  It’s the tough problems these reports have helped to solve that has brought us to where we are.  Rock-Pond Reports, delivered through the Rock-Pond Information Center delivers exponential power (The Power of 2) when used in conjunction with your pharmacy dispensing system. 

Over the next few months, we’ll be putting together some case studies and information about how Rock-Pond can help you solve the tough problems you face.  For now, here’s a brief history of where we’ve come from in the context of the timeline above. 

Brief History of Rock-Pond

In the early 1980’s the movement know today as the home infusion industry began.  Over the past 30 years medical and technology advances have enabled this industry to become what we have today.  Rock-Pond, in a sense, has been there since 1987 when Pete Tanguay (I) started the development of the first comprehensive home infusion software product for I Care of Arkansas, Dr. Gene Graves’ company.  Dr. Graves was the founding president of the National Home Infusion Association (NHIA) and in 2005 he was the first recipient of the Gene Graves Lifetime Achievement award to honor individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the home infusion therapy community.

MBI was sold to Option Care in 1996 and in 2000, Pete Tanguay left to start Rock-Pond Solutions.  Through this time, the industry has faced many challenges and changes as we do today. 

Over the years, the home infusion industry has gone through a lot of change.  Many of you remember these changes and the challenges they posed.  Through all of these changes, companies who had the information they needed had a tremendous advantage. 

Rock-Pond Solutions is well positioned to leverage our experience and the information tools we’ve developed to help you get where you need to go no matter what obstacles or opportunities you face.