Sandata Chosen to Implement Florida Agency for Health Care Administration Telephonic Home Health Project

PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., May 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Sandata, LLC, a leading nationwide provider of information technology solutions to the home healthcare industry, is pleased to announce the launch of the Telephonic Home Health Service Delivery Monitoring and Verification (DMV) pilot project in Miami-Dade County. This project will allow the Florida Medicaid program to verify that home health services were actually delivered to the Medicaid recipient.

Harold S. Blue, CEO for Sandata explained, "This project creates a triple win.  The patient wins with increased quality of care.  The Provider/Home Care Agency wins as automation drives cost savings and a new level of quality care delivery.  The Agency wins as automation increases system transparency, decreasing fraud, abuse and waste."

In 2009, the Florida Legislature passed Senate Bill 1986 giving the Agency more authority to fight fraud and abuse  in the Florida Medicaid program by increasing the standards home health agencies must meet before receiving Medicaid payments, adding penalties and providing new authority to impose sanctions and to suspend or revoke licenses of those who cheat the system. The bill also authorized the Agency to implement pilot projects in Miami-Dade County to prevent the overutilization of home health services and to control, verify and monitor the delivery of home health services.

"It is clear we are in alignment with the Agency's goals to ensure the Agency only pays for services rendered for the actual time the home health caregiver is with the recipient," said Mr. Blue.  "The Agency only pays for the '5 rights' – the right service provided, at the right location, at the right time, for the right patient, by the right caregiver."

Agency Secretary Thomas W. Arnold said, "Medicaid fraud is an important priority for our Medicaid program.  I am pleased that this project is underway, giving us one more tool to ensure that taxpayers' dollars are spent only on services actually provided to recipients."  

The Agency has contracted with Sandata to implement a pilot project to telephonically verify the delivery of home health visits by employees of home health agencies in Miami-Dade County who participate in the Florida Medicaid program. Sandata will validate home health visits that are provided to Medicaid recipients through interactive voice biometric speaker verification technology to ensure home health aide visits actually occurred in the recipient's residence.

Beginning July 1, 2010, Sandata will work with all home health agencies in Miami-Dade County to:

• Confirm home health visits by taking calls from home health agency personnel (nurses and home health aides) who directly provide services to Medicaid recipients at the beginning and end of each home health visit using the Medicaid recipient's home telephone. If the Medicaid recipient does not have an available telephone, Sandata has alternative processes for tracking the delivery of services;
• Generate claims for home health visits through its Santrax Payor Management system and ensure that the service delivery information is consistent with the prior authorization in the Florida Medicaid Management Information System; and
• Provide access to a Web based portal allowing providers to schedule visits, view visits provided by employees and confirm the accuracy of billing records before they are submitted to the Agency's fiscal agent.

Training and educational resources will be provided to home health agencies beginning in June. Medicaid providers and recipients can learn more about the new pilot project on the Web site, www.sandataflorida.com.

About Sandata, LLC

Sandata provides a complete package of information technology solutions, which includes scheduling, time and attendance, billing, payroll, compliance and clinical applications, for the home healthcare industry.  Sandata's suite of products includes Santrax, the market leading time and attendance product, web-based software solutions, voice biometrics to perform speaker verification, and a jurisdictional view dashboard solution for states, municipalities and the home healthcare agency market.

Sandata's solutions enable home healthcare agencies, whether Medicare, Medicaid or Private Duty, government or managed care payors as well as any organization with a remote workforce to realize administrative cost savings, streamlined operational procedures, and significantly reduced paperwork burdens.  Sandata has over 1,500 customers in 47 states using its products in more than 400,000 homes and processes over 100 million telephone calls annually.  Four data centers are strategically located across the country with state-of-the-art redundancy and disaster recovery capabilities.  For additional information about Sandata, please visit: www.sandata.com or contact Ellen Rich at [email protected] or 516-484-4400, x547.

About The Agency for Health Care Administration

The Agency for Health Care Administration is committed to better health care for all Floridians. The Agency administers Florida's Medicaid program, licenses and regulates more than 41,000 health care facilities and 43 health maintenance organizations, and publishes health care data and statistics on FloridaHealthFinder.gov. For more information, please visit AHCA.MyFlorida.com.

SOURCE Sandata, LLC