FAQ

To: SSI Clients - OVERVIEW

SURVIVAL STRATEGIES, INC.

January 22, 2022

To: SSI Clients

OBJECTIVE MANAGEMENT SUITE (OMS) IS

CLINIC-MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE

Your OMS software is Clinic Management Software, not just statistics keeping software.

Never use commas when entering data in OMS as it cuts the data off at a comma.

Always save the data entered before moving to another page or the data is lost.

Always ensure your monthly module has all data entered into it of the past month.

This is vital as there is data pulled from the monthly module into the weekly module and with an incomplete monthly spreadsheet the data in the weekly that is transferred will be incorrect.

WEELY STAT ANALYSIS

To manage your clinic correctly, you should do a “statistics analysis” at the end of each statistic week as soon as your weekly statistics are entered in OMS.

By “statistics analysis” we mean using your clinic’s weekly statistics to analyze (examine methodically and in detail) exactly what is going on in the clinic and to find out what areas need your attention to ensure that expansion and profitability continue to increase.

The following data on OMS is designed to help you do your weekly statistics analysis:

In OMS, the individual therapist stats are entered, and these are totaled automatically by OMS to give the overall clinic totals.

If any therapist neglects to enter his or her stats, the clinic stats will not be accurate, so this is extremely important.

By doing a statistics analysis every week you soon become trained on how to manage the clinic using the OMS Clinic Management Software.

WEEKLY MODULE USE FOR MANAGING CLINIC:

• The Date Range of the weekly Module should be kept to 12 weeks (about 3 months), and it must NEVER be set forward to a week that has not fully completed stat input as it causes false averages in OMS. This means it is always set to the date of the last COMPLETED STAT WEEK. (Never into a current incomplete stat week.)

• Weekly Graph 1, the Production Budget graph ONLY relates to the therapists, not to administrative staff. The green line shows the weekly Charges the therapists have created as a result of the service they give. The blue line is the amount the therapists cost the clinic weekly. The red line shows an accumulation of the profit the therapists have made for the clinic. This graph is used to show the viability of the therapists alone. (Note: part of this calculation comes from the Monthly Module so once again ensure it is up to date with all data entered.)

The red line should be climbing way above the blue and green lines, or the therapists are not making more for the clinic than they are costing the clinic.

(False data entry can also make this look unviable when it is not.)

• Weekly Graph #2, New Patients vs Referrals. This graph shows not only how many referrals came in for the week, but also how expert the FD is at getting them to come in for evaluations so that they become new clients.

If there is a big gap between Referrals and New Patients, then the FD is not doing a good job, or they are getting a lot of referrals whose insurance the clinic cannot take. The SSI FD system issues and the FD “What do you do?” drills are needed to improve this graph so there is not a big gap between Referrals and NP. If you are not on an SSI program that includes the FD system, the FD person(s) must be handled to become more efficient at getting the referrals in.

• Weekly Graph #3, New Patient versus Discharges. If discharges are above New Patients regularly, then the clinic is letting go more patients than it is taking in and it is shrinking rather than expanding. In this case, as an owner, you need to handle two things: Check if the therapists are discharging too soon – and get more referrals coming in being turned into New Patients = Marketing of all kinds or best - Referral Program actions and FD system and FD drills. You also want to know who is discharging too soon, so go into the Weekly Module Cumulative Reports Tab, choose “Discharges” and check who has the most discharges and help them do better. (If New Patients are up and BH/Visits are down, then probably Discharges are way up and this should be checked.)

• Weekly Graph #4, Billable Hours (or Visits for adult-patient clinics). This graph is influenced by three other graphs that need to be doing well for this graph to continue to do well – these are: New Patients / Advanced Scheduled / and % of Arrivals. (For a Pediatric Clinic it is mostly Advanced Scheduled and % of Arrivals as they keep patients much longer than adult-patient clinics.) If the BH/Visits graph is halted or going down look at those other graphs and see which of them is holding things down and get those handled. (One other reason it can be halted is if the clinic is operating at total capacity and there is no more room to take on additional therapists. This is the time to think about a new facility or opening a satellite office.)

• Weekly Graph #5, Charges. This is the amount that the clinic charges out to insurance companies. It is almost always more than the insurance companies will pay. (The difference in the charges that is not paid by the insurance company, or the patient is the “write off.” Note: bad debts that you have given up ever collecting are also considered write offs and should also be included in write offs.) The Charges graph is always compared to the BH/Visits’ graph. If BH/Visits are going up and charges are going down, then you are delivering service you are not charging for – or are not using the right billing-codes to get paid the correct amount for the services you are delivering. This usually has to be judged over several weeks as often the charges are a week behind in being graphed. Backlogged treatment notes can also hold the charges down as the treatment cannot be charged for, until the treatment notes are completed and signed off. Put in a “check system” to ensure all services delivered are charged for and check that the correct billing-codes are being used. You should use the codes they get the most legal reimbursement for – (nothing illegal). Another thing that can cause charges to appear to be going down is that one or more therapists’ charges were not entered into OMS. To check this, in the OMS Weekly Module click the Cumulative Reports Tab and choose Charges in the drop-down menu and check the week you are concerned about to see if anyone failed to enter charges and get that corrected.

NOTE: The Weekly Module Cumulative Reports Tab can be used whenever there is a drop or increase in a statistic graph. Spot the unusual situation (down or up) in any clinic graph, then go into the Cumulative Reports Tab and choose the stat you want to find out more about. Check down the column to find the therapist(s) who have the lowest stats and get them some help to improve their stats and that will help improve the whole clinic’s stats. Or find the therapist(s) who have the highest stats and commend them – and find out their successful actions so the other therapists can duplicate their successful actions.

• Weekly Graph #6, % Capacity. This graph shows you how much delivery you are doing, compared with what you are capable of doing, and is an important graph for this reason. You should be delivering as close to 100% capacity as possible, (though will very seldom hit a week of 100%, if ever). If this graph is low, the therapists are not busy, and more Referrals and New Patients are needed and/or the FD needs to do a better job on % of Arrivals as the therapists are not being given enough patients to keep them busy.

• Weekly Graph #7, Average Treatment Charge. This graph shows the average charge for all the treatments given. If there is a big change up or down, go into Weekly Module Cumulative Reports Tab and if there is someone way up or way down or is it a little by everyone. If it is one or two individuals down, help them improve. Commend anyone if they pushed things up. Maybe someone did not enter their charges at all so also check Weekly Module Cumulative Reports, Charges for that.

• Weekly Graph #8, Advanced Scheduled. This is the graph that is going to determine the BH/Visits for the following week. It is a prediction graph. At the end of each week, make sure your therapists enter the current week’s stats, the BH/Visits that are scheduled for the following week. A FD doing a great job, can get this stat nicely up, but if they don’t also do a great job at getting those they have scheduled, to come in when they should, the BH/Visits might still not go up or even go down. Provided there are enough Referrals, and the FD gets them in as NPs, this Advanced Scheduled Graph along with the % of Arrivals graph are what drive the BH/Visits, the Charges, and the Gross Income.

• Weekly Graph #9, % Arrivals. This graph shows both how skilled the FD is at getting the Advanced Scheduled in, and how caring and responsible the therapists are about making sure their patients will be there for their next appointment. It is a dual responsibility. Do not just correct and drill the FD but correct and drill the therapists also if this graph is pulling the BH/Visits down.

• Weekly Graph #10, # Cancels and No-Shows. It is important to keep this graph showing the actual cancels and no-shows, regardless of whether the FD manages to fill the slots by cancels. (A separate graph should be made in custom graphs to show the FD’s skill at filling slots made vacant by cancels.) But you, as the owner, need to be able to see the actual number of cancels and no-shows, as this can be an indicator that something is not right if it is high or goes high. The Cumulative Reports Tab should be checked for Cancels and No-Shows to see if they are mostly occurring from a specific therapist or therapists as then that/those therapist(s) can be trained and drilled to prevent this situation from occurring.

• Weekly Graph #11, Dropouts. As the owner, you need to keep an eye on this as it indicates the quality of treatment. If it is high or goes high, go into the Weekly Module Cumulative Reports Tab and to Dropouts in the dropdown menu and find out who has the most dropouts, and get the necessary correction done, whether it is treatment technology or personal relationships technology - or both, that need to be corrected.

• Weekly Graph #12, Gross Income. The Gross Income is all the income that comes in for the week regardless of from what source and by what means. This needs to be increasing so the clinic can expand and treat more needing patients in the community. The Gross Income or GI Graph should follow the Charges graph about 3 weeks behind (as it takes about that long to collect the payments from the insurance companies). If Charges are going up and GI is going down, then there is a problem in the finance division.

They are either not productive when they should be, or are undermanned in that area, or there is some administrative problem with the submissions (or an ethics problem if rejections are not being corrected and resubmitted, though this could be under-staffing in the Finance area also – if this is the case the person responsible should have made this known to the owner). If GI is going up but Charges are going down, you know income will soon follow and start going down. So, handle the Referrals, NP, Advanced Scheduled and/or % of Arrivals so the Charges go up and keep the GI up.

WEEKLY OVERALL: You need to get the understanding that OMS shows the production flow through the clinic and shows where it is not flowing as it should be and how this will affect the entire clinic if not handled.

It begins with marketing, and this can be many kinds, email newsletters, social media, website, postcards, relationship building with referral sources etc. Ideally perhaps all of these, but whatever it is it must result in referrals.

The referrals must be skillfully gotten in for evaluations and become New

Patients who must be advanced scheduled, gotten in as part of the % of

Arrivals, treated (BHs or Visits), the treatment charged for, the patient

rescheduled for next visit, the insurance payments energetically collected,

all the staff paid. Then more promotion done until there is expansion and the production statistics, which represent patients helped, keep on going up.

Weekly OMS graphs show this sequence and tell the owner what area to investigate, what to correct and what successes to duplicate and strengthen.

The purpose of OMS is to help the owner learn how to manage the clinic using the software. OMS is not just stat-keeping software. Become aware of its full value and how to use it to expand and be successful. Your consultant will assist you with this while getting you to get your Program Phase Targets done.

To learn more about how to do a statistics analysis and use statistics to manage your clinic, study page 51 through page 63 in your copy of the book, Breaking the Code which was sent to you with your SSI Program Manuals. (If you need additional copies of this book, they can be attained via the SSI website bookstore www.SurvivalStrategies.com )

MONTHLY MODULE USE FOR MANAGING CLINIC

000. As soon as possible, after the end of each month get your monthly stats

into the OMS Monthly Module.

• The date range of the monthly stats should be kept at 13 months so the same month the previous year is always showing. This gives an immediate view of whether you are doing better this year than at the same time the previous year. This is important as you need to be expanding, not contracting. Never set the “To” date into a current incomplete month as that causes false averages. The “To” date is set to the last completed month by calendar date.

• The red bottom line on the graphs that lead to increased income (like NP, BH/Visits and Charges) shows what you must be above to be solvent. The green potential line shows what you should strive for and when you get production near that point, it shows that you may need to hire to be able to meet increasing demand for your services. These red and green lines are set automatically using data you enter in the OMS Module.

• Monthly Graph #1 is Active Referral Sources, and this may not be being used at all if you are not on the SSI Referral Program. If you are on the Referral Program, it is vital that you use this graph and do the entries, but this must be kept real. To enter scores of potential Referral Sources who are not actually referring, makes it unwieldy and unworkable. There should be a gradual increase of Referral Sources month by month and a gradual increase of referrals from each Referral Source if the PCC is active and competent. The graphs show the top 12 referral sources.

• Monthly Graph #2, New Patients should be up-trending though with some clinics it may slump a bit at specific times of year, (clinics that have school contracts, in particular).

• Monthly Graph #3, Billable Hours/Visits will be the same. School holidays can affect this stat for Pediatric Clinics that have a lot of school contracts. In that case you need to get bright and figure out ways to compensate for this. The previous graph (NP) needs to be increasing for this graph to be increasing.

• Monthly Graph #4 is Average Billable Hours/Visits Per Patient. This should be on the same trend as the BH/Visits graph. If your clinic has a crush of patients, your therapists will tend to discharge too soon, and this stat will go down as each patient gets less treatments. If your clinic is short of patients, the therapists will tend to hold onto them longer and give them more treatments and this stat will go up. You should be seeing the therapists are giving them the right number of treatments regardless of whether there is a crush of patients or a shortage of patients. If there is a crush, then you may need an additional therapist. If there is a shortage, of patients, then more effective marketing is needed.

• Monthly Graph #5 is Charges, and it should follow the trend of BH/Visits. If not, go to Weekly Module Cumulative Reports Tab and find who is not charging or charging below the other therapists and get that corrected.

• Monthly Graph #6 is Average Treatment Charge. If BH/Visits are up and Charges are up but this graph down, handle the same as for #5 – go into the OMS Weekly Module and Cumulative Reports Tab and find who is responsible and get them corrected.

• Monthly Graph #7 – Write-offs. This is an upside-down graph so that when it is going up, there are less Write-Offs and that is good. It shows the difference between what you Charge and what the insurance companies pay you – but it can also contain bad debts that you write off because you cannot collect them. Look for strange discrepancies here. Obviously, if Write-offs were higher than charges, the data would be false as you cannot be writing off more than you are Charging. If it is as high as 60%+ of what is being Charged, there is cause to look into it as you should be receiving more than 40% of what you Charge. You could be writing off debts too easily without being energetic enough in trying to collect the money.

• Monthly Graph #8 – Accounts Receivable (AR’s) is also an upside-down graph. If BH/Visits are going up and Charges are going up, Collections should go up so that Accounts Receivable become less, and the graph goes up. If ARs are increasing, then Collections is not being energetic enough in collecting the available money. This graph is subject to being very false if the data entry is wrong. The end of the very first month that OMS was started must have the exact ARs entered for that month. This data must be obtained accurately from some other software source. From that first entry, for all the following months, OMS takes the AR amount, adds the Charges, and subtracts the Collections (Gross Income) plus the Write-Offs to get each successive month’s correct ARs.

If that first entry is wrong, every other month will be wrong. If there is incorrect data entry any other month (such as an extra 0 or a missing 0, or a comma used, causing OMS to ignore all numbers after the comma), then the graph becomes false from that point onward. Additionally, if the Write-offs are false, the ARs will be false as OMS will be subtracting the wrong amounts. If this graph goes minus, look for these errors as ARs cannot be minus. If it suddenly makes an unusual increase or decrease inconsistent with Collections and Write-Offs, look for a data entry mistake – a comma used, cutting off the number, or an added digit or a missing digit, or Write-Offs suddenly gone wrong.

• Monthly Graph #9 is Average Collection Period. This graph shows how long it takes to collect the money that is going to be paid against the Charges made earlier. If this is going down, then Collections is not being energetic enough in chasing up the insurance companies to pay up.

• Monthly Graph #10 is Collections. If NP, BH/Visits and Charges are going up, then Collections should be going up as well. If it is going down while these others are going up, then it again shows that Collections is not being energetic enough in getting the money in (or the area is undermanned and needs more personnel – but only if current personnel are working flat out on collecting and still cannot keep up).

• Monthly Graph #11 is Expenses. This of course must be less than Collections or the clinic is not making a profit. In which case expenses must be cut down below average weekly Collections and BH/Visits and Charges must be increased.

• Monthly Graph # 12 is Profits. This is simply Collections minus Expenses. If there is no profit, Expenses must be cut back and delivery increased with smart Marketing and a lot of attention on NP, Advanced Scheduling and % of Arrivals, as these drive the production of BH/Visits.

• Monthly Graph #13 is the Pie-Chart Graph of the Referral Sources and will only be showing any data if you have done the Referral Program and are correctly entering the monthly data in the Referral Sources Tab of the Monthly Module. On this pie-chart graph you should show a lot of Referral Sources referring. If you have one or even two Referral Sources referring most of the referrals, you are at risk. That/those Referral Sources can move out of town, retire, be bought out by a hospital who will cut all referrals off, etc. To be secure, you need a lot of different Referral Sources referring regularly, so that if something happens to one or two of them, you still get enough referrals to keep the therapists busy and production high and you stay solvent.

THE OMS PROFIT MODULE

NOTE: Data in the Profit Module needs to be kept accurate. As staff leave and as staff are hired, and as expansion occurs, the Bottom-Line Production and the Potential Production of the entire clinic changes. If this is not kept up to date, then the other Modules will not be fully accurate and as useful as they can be. Update the Profit Module data at least once a month when you do the Monthly Stats in the Monthly Module. (You should always update it whenever you add new staff or lose/let go of staff.)

CAUTION: Make sure you NEVER use any of the OMS stat data to accuse a staff member or make them wrong or invalidate them.

Statements like, “Your Collections Actions are not energetic enough” tend to set you as the owner against the Collections people and can knock them down-tone and give them losses which causes them to become less effective.

But if you say something like, “Let’s see what we can do to help your collections be more effective”’ it will have you being helpful to that area, and the area will remain up-tone and winning.

This can be used even when conditions are assigned – not, “Your stats are in Danger, and you better do the Danger Formula fast.”

But something like this, “Your stats indicate your post is in a Danger Condition. Let us see how we can apply the Danger Formula steps thoroughly to get you into a stable higher condition.”

(This does not mean that non-optimum actions/out-ethics should not be handled, but that too can be done in a helpful way rather than in a way that invalidates or is accusative. Unless they are made wrong and the “compulsion to be right” is triggered, good people want to be corrected if they do wrong.)

Barry Watson

Senior Quality Control SSI

Edited and approved by

Craig Ferreira

CEO/SSI

Q: I am experiencing a “Screen Freeze” and/or "Non-Responsive" screen. This can occur in the Monthly or Weekly module.

A: The primary thing that can cause this issue is too many months or weeks selected in the Date Range at once, i.e. more than 12 months for example. There is a lot of data to process in that case and if the computer is not very powerful this can happen. Also, you might make sure there are not too many programs open at one time (draining memory) ... another thing to try is to reboot the computer.

Q: When I click on the Weekly module and display Clinicians, it seems that the system is exceptionally slow, as much as 10-15 seconds to display all the clinicians.

A: Depending on your computer performance, your internet speed and the amount of data the system is required to process, will determine the speed of displaying your selection.

If you happen to have a practice that has a large number of Clinicians, (over 20 or so) the system has to work harder to process all of the data to display the weekly activity of all of the clinicians.

The system works at peak performance levels when you select a moderate date range, i.e., 13 weeks date range is your recommended date range. When this shorter range is selected, even a practice with as many as 35 clinicians will still display your selection in 1-2 seconds.

It is possible to view a long date range (up to 52 weeks) if you wish to analyze your practice performance over that longer period of time, but just remember your system performance will be slower with that longer date range. When you have completed your analysis, you simply shorten your date range, and the system performance will return to its speedy display.

BUDGET MODULE FAQs:

Q: How do I figure out what my average collectible visit charge is?

A: Take your income or collections for an extended time period (12 months is ideal) and divide it by the total number of visits for that same time period.

Q: What if I want to increase or decrease the amount of rows at the bottom of the Budget Projections?

A: You can change the number in the ‘Step Count’ box to how many rows you would like to view. (Remember to hit ‘Save Data’ if you do this)

Q: Should I enter the payroll taxes in the itemized budget if I also, have it set at a certain percentage in the staff section?

A: No, you should only have it in one place or your expenses will count it twice and will not be accurate.

MONTHLY MODULE FAQs:

Q: I am trying to change the date range and it isn’t working. Am I doing something wrong?

A: Always make sure you select the year and then the month, in that order. If you are still experiencing problems then contact your consultant at SSI or email us at info@objectivemanagementsuite.com

Q: Should my Max # of Visits on the Monthly match up with the Max Visits in the Budget Module?

A: Yes, they should be the same figure although the budget is the most accurate.

Q: What if I don’t know my ARs for every month?

A: That is okay, you only need to know what the AR’s were in the first reporting month, and OMS will calculate the rest!

Q: What if I don’t know the referral source’s first name, specialty, etc?

A: Although the system will ask you for the first name, last name, and specialty, you only need to enter a last name for the system to accept the entry.

Q: Is there a maximum amount of referral sources the system takes and then it’s ‘full’?

A: No, you can literally have as many referral sources as you want!

Q: What if the graphs aren’t coming up at all?

A: They should appear if you have data entered. However, if they don’t, simply click the refresh button on both your browser and on each individual graph. If you are still experiencing difficulty, contact us by email at info@objectivemanagementsuite.com

Q: What if my graphs aren’t printing?

A: Make sure you are using the most recent versions of Safari, Firefox, or Google Chrome. If you are using Internet Explorer (IE), they will not print as the graphics are too advanced for IE. The other browsers can be downloaded free of charge.

WEEKLY MODULE FAQs:

Q: What are the maximum amount of weeks I can display?

A: 52 weeks, though you should only be working with 13 weeks for graphing. Be advised that displaying up to 52 weeks will slow the system.

It is best to have your spreadsheet chosen for a date range of 12 or 13 weeks. You can always select previous or forward dates

Q: What if I have a therapist that isn’t appearing in the Weekly?

A: Go back to the Budget Module and ensure you have the ‘Clinician’ box checked in the “Staff” tab. If it is not checked, the weekly system will not create their spreadsheet in the Weekly Module.

Q: Can I make a custom stat that’s monthly instead of weekly?

A: No. You want to do your stats weekly for managing, but you can make a stat and ‘pretend’ that it is monthly, by simply entering in the data each month as opposed to each week and using it for that purpose.

Q: Is there a limit to how many custom statistics I cancreate?

A: No

Q: How do I tell if my clinicians are producing at least 3 times their salary?

A: At the bottom of the weekly clinician spreadsheet the” accumulated profits” take the charges and deduct from them the % write-offs from the monthly spreadsheet (this is why your monthly spreadsheet must always be up to date)and then deduct the amount you are paying that clinician which ends up with the profits of that clinician.

This then accumulates week by week as shown at the bottom of the spreadsheet.

Q: When setting up the clinicians, what do I put for ‘min hr’ and ‘max hr’?

A: When entering this data, the ‘min hr’ should be this: How many visits do you expect that therapist to do in one hour, minimally? The ‘max hr’ should be how many visits they can do max without sacrificing the quality of care.This could look something like min hr: 1.5 / max hr:

2. This creates the bottom line and potential for each therapist. It is your choice to keep this the same, meaning if they can do up to 2.5 max visits and that’s what you expect them to do, then that makes the min the same as the max.

That is totally up to you, but please realize if you choose this, their potential and bottom line will be the same, which doesn’t make for a fun game of production for them ☺

Q: Should I put in the number of hours they see patients or total hours worked, even with notes included?

A: You should put the total number of hours you paid them for. If they’re full-time – you put 40 hours. The Weekly remember is taking their salary from the Budget Module. We want to know what they are producing vs. what you’re paying them so it’s important to list the hours without any time taken out.

GENERAL FAQs:

If you have general questions or concerns, please make sure you’ve read through the manuals as well as watched the training videos.

If you still have questions or do not understand some portion of the software, please contact us and we will be happy to assist you. You may email us directly at info@objectivemanagementsuite.com

Please include the following in your email:

1. Account email and password.

2. What module you’re asking about.

Please be as specific as possible in terms of the question or problem you are experiencing.

We will get your question answered within 24 hours.

It is vital you fully understand how Objective Management Suite works! Only when you have complete understanding of this invaluable tool can you really see the benefits it has to the longevity of your practice