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NHIA Discount Extended

April 30, 2012 By Leave a Comment

One of the highlights of our trip to Phoenix last week for the 2012 NHIA Conference was launching Rock-Pond’s Enterprise Reporting Platform, OBSIDIAN, which received tremendous interest among home infusion providers searching for a way to turn their DATA into meaningful INFORMATION.

As part of the OBSIDIAN launch at NHIA, we announced a 15% discount on the Rock-Pond Information Center for anyone that signed up for the OBSIDIAN Challenge by today, April 30.  Due to the remarkable response, we have decided to extend this discount through the rest of this week to allow more providers to jump on this opportunity.  The OBSIDIAN Challenge is simple:  Experience OBSIDIAN free for five days, then try to live without it!

We have also decided to extend the MHA Anniversary discount.  If you are a MHA Business Solutions Center user, you will receive three months free of Rock-Pond Reports in addition to the 15% discount mentioned above.

Have you signed up for the OBSIDIAN Challenge yet?  Don’t wait!  Now is the perfect time to begin finding value in Rock-Pond’s products and services.  Other great things are happening in the Pond…stay tuned to find out more!

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The Importance of Following Up

April 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Proper follow-up is a critical phase in the success of any company in the health care industry.  As a provider, it is important to implement strategies that will reinforce effective communication with your patients.  Consider these three tips on why it is important to follow up with your patients:

  1. Cost Effectiveness — Insufficient follow-up may result in your patient switching to another provider, which means a loss in revenue for your business.
  2. Patient Satisfaction –  Patients are more likely to recommend you to others if they have good experiences and have developed a relationship with you.
  3. Quality Care — It is your duty to follow up with patients to ensure that their health needs are being met.

Having the right INFORMATION at the right time is crucial when developing follow-up strategies.  Rock-Pond has a report for Ascend customers that will help make the process smoother.  The Follow Up Pharmacy Notes report (!as_1082a) was developed to enable pharmacists to review all patients for a period of time that require clinical follow-up.  With this report, pharmacists can better maintain their communication with patients.  The report includes patient contact information, primary diagnosis, and previous notes with the corresponding dates.

“The Pharmacy Follow Up report has increased the efficiency of our pharmacists.  It groups all clinical follow up notes for the same patient on one page, not randomly distributed throughout the report.  We couldn’t get this through Ascend without Rock-Pond!”

John Mattern, Pharm.D.
Pharmacy Director
Home Health United Xtra Care Pharmacy

In addition to following up with patients for clinical reasons, the billing department must stay on top of the accounts with balances due.  Rock-Pond has reports designed specifically for CPR+, HomecareNet and Ascend customers to view past due follow up notes so collectors can focus on the claims they should be pursuing.

Are you following up properly in all areas of your business?  Let Rock-Pond help increase the efficiency of your staff.  Contact us at 501.232.4360 and take the OBSIDIAN Challenge.

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Filed Under: CPR+ & Mediware Customers Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Rock-Pond Reports reach Critical Mass

March 29, 2012 By Leave a Comment

In the “old days” businesses didn’t have good intelligence on what their customers were doing.  This is no longer true.  Amazon.com’s business is based on the “people who bought this bought that” and Facebook is taking over the world because they know who is connected and that “people who like this like that“.

In 2010, Rock-Pond Solutions committed to know this about our customers.  If we are going to truly be able to serve the needs of our customers, we must know what their needs are.  If we are going to say we answer tough questions, we must know our customer’s tough questions.  More importantly we must be answering them.  We took a lesson from Amazon, Facebook and Google and built our “cloud based computing” architecture that we call ‘The Pond‘.  To find out how to improve service to our customers, we simply need to look in the Pond.

I just ran this report to see what our customers did in the first quarter of 2012.  You can see the detail for 13 of our customers and the total for all of them above. Honestly, I am happily surprised to know that they have run almost 14,000 reports.  With 150% growth in utilization from January to March and sales for the first quarter up over 200% over the first quarter of 2011, we have reached critical mass.  Not only do we know how many reports people are running, but we know that people who run this run that.  We can reach out to customers who are not running a report and let them know about it.  Recently we launched a report that did the calculations for Competitive Bidding.  We know who ran this report.

It doesn’t stop here.  Our customers need to know who in their organization is running reports, what parameters they are using when they run them and to be able to restrict who can run specific reports.  Internal and external auditors demand this information and a company’s DATA is not guaranteed to be secure without it.  In October 2011, Rock-Pond Solutions launched the Rock-Pond Developers Studio so all of our customers will have access to this information.  The first question from a security or compliance officer is, “How do I know someone has not tampered with the INFORMATION access logs?”  The answer is simple.  “They can’t.  The DATA is in the Pond.  And the Pond is secure“.

And it won’t stop there.  We have plans to connect our customers by allowing them to find out who is running a report they are running.  Our customers want to know who has the same tough question they do and how are they answering it.  Using the DATA in the Pond to connect them to the right people, our customers will be able to get the INFORMATION they need at a whole new level.  It’s like an intelligent listserv (outdated way to connect people) or a DATA driven Facebook.  Who knows, we might even connect it to Facebook.

A recent customer whose pharmacy has been in business for over 100 years, says it best of all:

“We have only had Rock-Pond for ten days.  If you take it away from me now, I don’t know what I will do!”

We are humbled by these kinds of comments.  We can’t take much credit for what we have because it is the result of the innovative customers we serve who share their tough questions with us and give us the opportunity to provide them answers they can use.

Rock-Pond Solutions has reached critical mass now and great things are happening in the Pond.  We are committed to know the needs of our customers and to help them get the INFORMATION they need from the DATA they’ve got.  We are also committed to get the INFORMATION we need from the DATA we’ve got so we can go to the next level with our customers.

If you are one of our customers or partners who is attending the 2012 NHIA conference in Phoenix,
please allow us to show you how much we appreciate you
by joining us at the Phoenix Art Museum for a Night of Appreciation.

 

 

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Rock-Pond Integrated into HomecareNet Software

March 21, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Mediware Information Systems, Inc. and Rock-Pond Solutions are pleased to announce the integration of the Rock-Pond Information Center into the main HomecareNet desktop with the release of HomecareNet 4.4.1.1.

Commenting on the integration, Jennifer Keiser, General Manager of Alternate Care Software for Mediware, stated:

“Last year, one of the top requests of our customer Steering Committee was for an enhanced custom reporting tool to enable them to add custom reports developed using a report-writing tool to the HomecareNet menus.  We determined that Rock-Pond’s Enterprise Reporting Platform would be a great solution for our customers to deploy, run and manage reports through their HomecareNet menus.  This integration is a perfect example of our commitment to continuously enhance our clients’ access to the industry’s best software tools.”

The Rock-Pond Information Center is the report management component of Rock-Pond’s Enterprise Reporting Platform, OBSIDIAN.  Combined with Rock-Pond Reports, the Rock-Pond Developer Studio and Rock-Pond Custom Reporting Services, OBSIDIAN is a comprehensive reporting solution.  Now HomecareNet users can access reports written by their team as well as Rock-Pond Reports without leaving the application.

President of Rock-Pond Solutions, Pete Tanguay, said:

“The integration with HomecareNet in many ways completes the work we started over five years ago working with Advantage Reimbursement to extend the reporting capabilities of HomecareNet.  With proven results in a large base of HomecareNet customers, we expect the integration will further improve efficiencies and expand the use of our Enterprise Reporting Platform in the Mediware customer base.”

If you are a HomecareNet user and would like to use this feature, please visit www.rock-pond.com/hcn for complete information.  Also, existing Rock-Pond customers can download the Rock-Pond Information Center Activator for HomecareNet on the website listed above to make the button active.  If you are not yet a Rock-Pond customer and you would like to utilize this feature, we would love to show you the value in our products.  Contact us at sales@rock-pond.com or (501) 232-4360 to find out more and to begin your free trial.

About Mediware

Mediware delivers interoperable best-of-breed software systems that improve efficiencies and address safety concerns, enabling healthcare organizations to improve care processes while decreasing costs. Core Mediware solutions include blood management technologies for hospitals and blood centers; medication management solutions for hospitals, behavioral health facilities, infusion and specialty pharmacy providers; and business intelligence-based performance management solutions for clinical, regulatory and financial aspects of the broader healthcare market. For more information about Mediware products and services, visit their website at www.mediware.com.

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Axium Healthcare Pharmacy Selects Rock-Pond

March 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

Rock-Pond Solutions welcomes Axium Healthcare to our growing list of customers.

Axium Healthcare Pharmacy, Inc. is a nationwide clinical specialty pharmacy provider with expertise in managing patients on complex therapies and specialty medication distribution.  As one of the nation’s leading specialty pharmacies, Axium Healthcare Pharmacy provides comprehensive therapy-management programs as well as injectable and oral pharmaceutical treatments. Click their logo on the left to visit their website.

Axium completed implementation with Rock-Pond at the end of January.  Since becoming our customer, Rock-Pond has been able to provide several solutions to meet their financial needs.  They needed to be able to analyze their A/R with options to view unapplied cash and run the report by deposit date rather than the transaction date.  Brianda Guzman, Accounting Supervisor at Axium stated:

Before we were a Rock-Pond customer, we had to use four different A/R reports to get the information we needed.  Rock-Pond customized their A/R Aging Analyzer to meet our exact needs.  Everything is now accessible with only one report!

CLICK HERE to learn about the expansion of Rock-Pond’s development team for custom reporting.

Axium also needed to provide auditors with information on their adjustments. Rock-Pond’s exportable Adjustments Aging Analyzer (!c2_1245bx) was exactly what they needed.

The Adjustments Aging report worked perfectly for our auditors!  We couldn’t have got this information out of our CPR+ system without Rock-Pond.

Brianda Guzman, Accounting Supervisor

 

We are proud to call Axium Healthcare Pharmacy our customer and thrilled that our reports are positively impacting their business.  We look forward to answering their Tough Questions in the future.

 

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Rock-Pond Development Team Doubles

March 15, 2012 By 1 Comment

Rock-Pond Solutions is continuously expanding.  We have transitioned from being a consulting company that writes reports to a data analytics company that markets an Enterprise Reporting Platform.  In response to this growth, the Rock-Pond development team has already doubled in 2012.  Under the leadership of Brandon Carpenter, we now have a dedicated staff of four full time people that develop and maintain Rock-Pond Reports and produce custom reports requested by home infusion, specialty pharmacy, and HME providers.

Rock-Pond Reports include a catalog of over 500 reports designed specifically for CPR+ and Mediware users.  Every report we have created is based on the requests of our customers.  Our custom reporting services is a very efficient machine to get the precise information that answers the Tough Questions of our customers.

Before we were a Rock-Pond customer, we had to use four different A/R reports to get the information we needed.  Rock-Pond customized their A/R Aging Analyzer to meet our exact needs.  Everything is now accessible with only one report!

Brianda Guzman, Accounting Supervisor
Axium Healthcare Pharmacy

Click here to read the full story on Axium.

If you are faced with a Tough Question and are tired of spending hours and hours trying to solve it, let our team of experts help you.  Our development team knows where the data is in your system and they know how to put this data in a format that you will understand.  Brandon, Fred, Jeff, and Jonathan are more than just experts on the data structures of all the commercially available home infusion software products; they are a team of people that are committed to providing our customers with quality information in a timely manner.

Jeff Hardy, the newest Data Analyst / Crystal Reports Developer to join the Rock-Pond team, is considered our ‘data extract specialist.’  Jeff recently stated:

After 25 years of information technology experience, I have found that the key to succeeding is understanding how to communicate with customers and being flexible to meet their demands.  My goal at Rock-Pond is to do my part in empowering our customers with the information they need with the best possible customer service while I do it.

Another developer that has joined our team this year is Jonathan Buck.  In addition to assisting customers with all aspects of installing our products, Jonathan works with customers to solve their reporting needs.  In the short time since he has worked here, he has built many relationships with our customers; something that is a core goal of our company.  Just last week, a user from a large hospital-based home infusion company commented on how thankful she was for Jonathan’s excellent work, quick assistance, and great customer service.

Please join us in giving Jeff and Jonathan a huge Rock-Pond welcome!  As we continue growing, we are committed to maintaining a team that gives providers the INFORMATION they need from the DATA they’ve got in a fast and effective manner. Do you have a Tough Question that you need resolved?  If we don’t already have the report, we will develop a custom report to meet your needs.  Contact us at leah@rock-pond.com or by phone at 501.232.4360 to get started.

CLICK HERE to visit the Meet Our Team page and learn more about all the employees that propel Rock-Pond’s success.

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Explanation of Rock-Pond’s Report Codes

March 7, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Rock-Pond customers see a variety of numbers and letters when searching and running reports in the Rock-Pond Information Center.  Although you don’t have to know what each report code represents, some may find it useful.

Our report codes were designed to benefit both Rock-Pond and our customers.  In the health care industry, each patient has a unique number assigned to them.   At Rock-Pond, each report is assigned a unique identifier.  There is a reason that the codes are different.  Our searching options make it easy to search for reports by keyword; however, 20 reports may display from your keyword.  If you know the report code, you can easily find the specific report that you are looking for.  In order to keep consistency, we follow the guidelines explained below to assign report codes.

1)  Software Specific Identifiers

Since we provide reports for multiple home infusion, HME, and specialty pharmacy software vendors, we begin each report code with a software specific identifier as seen below.

2) Slight Report Variations

Typically when a report has a suffix of a letter such as “a” or “b” it simply means it’s a different flavor of the report without the letter.

The reports listed below all deal with revenue.  They cover the same area in the system but with a different angle.

3) Export Reports

Sometimes there is an “x” attached to a report code.  Reports that include an “x” were designed to be exported into Excel so users can create pivot tables or special manipulation. Most reports that are built to do that have an “x” suffix but there may be a few exceptions.

4) Different Software Versions

Software venders occasionally release new versions of their software to add new features, take advantage of changes in technology, and keep up with regulatory changes.  With the release of these versions, there are some functionality changes.  To accommodate our customers, we adjust our reports accordingly.

For example, HomecareNet made a change to the collector functionality in version 4 that required an adjustment in our reports. Since some customers were still using version 3, we could not change our other reports.  Therefore, we created new reports with the same functionality but attached an “_4” to the report code.

5) Report Revisions

At the bottom of each report, the report code is listed.  In the picture below, you will notice that there is a “.005″ following the report code.  This number means that the report has been revised five times.  If you notice that the number is different from the previous time you ran it, you may want to see what the adjustments are.  There may be a new feature of that report that would help you get the information you need.

The inspiration for this post was from a Rock-Pond customer who recently asked for clarification on our report codes.  We love when our customers ask questions.  If you ever have a question about our products, we are only an email or phone call away.  Contact us at leah@rock-pond.com or 501.232.4363.

Filed Under: CPR+ & Mediware Customers Tagged With: , , , ,

Expanded Export Features in RPIC 2.0.3

March 6, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Rock-Pond Solutions has enhanced the exporting functions of reports with release 2.0.3 of the Rock-Pond Information Center.  Users can now export their current view, such as an item that has been drilled down, or the entire report to an Excel file, PDF, or their printer.  This new feature is in direct response to the requests of our customers.

If users would like to only see only a specific part of a report or if they want to look at more detail, our platform allows them to “drill down” on the report.  In previous releases of our product, customers only had the option to export the entire report to excel for their manipulation.  Now, users can export only the information they need at that moment.

In the illustration below, you will see an arrow beside the cursor pointing to El Paso, TX.  This arrow identifies that El Paso can be drilled down on.  By double clicking it, users will be able to see only the competitive bidding information for that specific CBA.  If the user wants to export that drill down, simply ‘Export Current View to Excel’ as shown below.

If you are a Rock-Pond customer and would like to utilize the new export features in the latest release of the Rock-Pond Information Center, please update to version 2.0.3.  To upgrade to the new release, select ‘Check for Updates’ in the menu bar at the upper left-hand corner of the Information Center and follow the on-screen instructions.  As always, do not hesitate to contact us with any questions that you may have.  Please direct questions to (501) 232-4360 or leah@rock-pond.com.

Complete product information and release notes for all products in the Rock-Pond Enterprise Reporting Platform can be found in the product resource center on our webpage.

Filed Under: CPR+ & Mediware Customers Tagged With: , , , , ,

Wait 15 minutes and try it again

February 15, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Sometimes we need to step back, regroup and then try again when something is not working.  Sometimes when you can’t figure something out if you’ll give it some time and try it again you’ll have success.  At Rock-Pond Solutions, we are constantly telling our customers to “wait 15 minutes and try it again”.  In our case, however, there is a different meaning.  It means that the new report or report modification you’ve requested is complete and will be available to you soon.  This immediate connection to our customers in 35 states and Puerto Rico is made possible by a powerful tool we’ve developed called Rock-Pond Connect.

Under the leadership of Brandon Carpenter, Rock-Pond has a team of 4 developers who spend their days creating reports for home infusion, specialty pharmacy and HME providers (Click here to Meet our Team).  Everything we do is based on a request from a customer.  Our customer reporting service has come a long way in the last 10 years and has become a very efficient machine to get the precise information out of our customers data to solve a business need.

A few solutions that we have recently provided or are in the process of solving include:

  • Helping providers prepare for submitting a bid in Round 2 of Competitive Bidding; (Learn more)
  • Analyzing data to find billing errors, such as drugs being billed twice on different invoices for the same dates of service;
  • Discovering errors in insurance contracts that cause pricing problems;
  • Creating a Pfizer (Axitinib) data extract report to support specialty pharmacy contracts with pharmaceutical manufacturers;
  • Customizing Patient Statements with added detail
  • Much, much more.

So the next time you find yourself keying data from multiple reports into a spreadsheet for analysis, searching through your system to find issues or faced with a business challenge or opportunity and need information to make your decision, let us know how we can help you.  The good news is we have a team of developers who know right where the data is and how to get it out and into the format that you need.  The better news is we can usually turn requests around in a few days.  The best news is once we are complete there is nothing to install, no “IT work” that has to be done and no waiting for the next update of your software.  When your report is ready you’ll be notified along with the message to “wait 15 minutes and try it again”.  That’s the beauty of Rock-Pond Connect and the Rock-Pond custom reporting services working together to give you the INFORMATION you need from the DATA you’ve got.

Do you want to be immediately connected with the information you need?  Rock-Pond would love to get you connected.  Email us or call (501) 232-4360 to learn the VALUE of the Rock-Pond Enterprise Reporting Platform.  If you are already connected with Rock-Pond, our team of developers are here to help with all of your reporting needs.  Contact brandon@rock-pond.com to receive solutions today.

Filed Under: CPR+ & Mediware Customers Tagged With: , , , , ,

Focus on therapy / payer mix for profitability

February 3, 2012 By Leave a Comment

From a financial and profitability perspective, all patients are not equal.  The two primary drivers of profitability in a home infusion business are therapy and payer.  In order to manage your business to drive profitability, you must understand which payer / therapy combinations are “good” business and which ones are not.

As a general rule there will be 6-8 focus therapies that if you do well with those, you’ll do well as a company.  These are therapies like TPN, IVIG, etc.  These may be unique to your specific business focus.  There are other therapies like hydration and catheter care that you will do but are supplemental to the focus therapies.

Not to mention any names, there are some payers that are typically good and others that pay poorly and late in almost all cases.  However, there are many cases where a specific payer / therapy combination is an exception to the quality of the payer.  Often, for example, providers dismiss Medicaid as a poor payer.  This is not always the case.  There may be therapies that your state Medicaid payer recognizes for the value they provide and will pay for them comparable to private insurance.

Rock-Pond Solutions wrote a custom report for a large provider who had identified their focus therapies and wanted to provide their sales team with feedback regarding the quality of the business their referral sources were referring to the company.  Instead of Good / Bad business, they opted for Good Revenue and Low Revenue as the two categories.  The report has the option to run based for new patients (patients where the start of care date and dates of service are in the same month) or all patients.  Providing this feedback to the sales team on a weekly basis gave them immediate feedback on the value of the referrals they were receiving from the physicians and referral sources they were meeting with.  In turn they were able to direct their sales and marketing efforts to drive more Good Revenue in to the business.

Not only did the sales team improve, but the profitability of the business overall improved significantly.  Simply focusing on key therapies, payers who paid poorly on these key therapies and the source of these referrals was the start.  Providing this information to the sales and clinical team so everyone knew the difference between Good Revenue and Low Revenue was the key to improving profitability.

Filed Under: CPR+ & Mediware Customers Tagged With: , , , , , , , ,
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