JMS Senior Living

Partnership advances financial and clinical outcomes

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High level results

• Staff efficiency gains
• Improving financial and clinical accuracy
• Tracking and improving quality of care
• Accelerating claims and cash flow
• Improving accountability

BACKGROUND

In 2014, Missouri’s JMS Senior Living was ready for a major, integrated technology solution. JMS cares for approximately 900 residents in its 14 skilled nursing facilities across the state, with headquarters about an hour outside of Kansas City in Chillicothe, MO. Ben Scheulen, CEO of family-owned JMS, says, “To thrive and grow, we needed an integrated technology solution for our entire business.”

CHALLENGES

JMS Senior Living has methodically built a network of skilled care facilities. What was missing, says CEO Scheulen, were technology-enabled financial management and clinical systems across the JMS system.

“Too many of our financial and clinical practices were paper-based, so we were missing the efficiency and accuracy which technology could provide,” said Scheulen, who was named CEO in 2014.

“We started talking with technology providers who could address both our financial and clinical systems, and our clear choice was to partner with American HealthTech,” he said.

SOLUTION

A rich technology solution was required because of the complex combination of needs across facilities ranging from 52 beds to more than 130. The mix includes hospice care and locked dementia care, with payers ranging from Medicare and Medicaid to private insurers.

Scheulen said critically important factors for JMS were ease of use of the technology solution and hiring a single-source provider because of the dispersed facilities and previously uneven levels of technology skills across the system. Among the key reasons behind the selection of AHT are:

• Advanced technology solutions for the clinical side of the business, including Quality Assurance and Electronic Medical Records.
• Financial reporting, billing and accounting software needed to sharpen the entire revenue management and reimbursement cycle.
• Implementation services – especially training and troubleshooting – that would help the organization take the technology leap with the least organizational disruption possible.

RESULTS

“We went live with our financial systems first,” Scheulen said. Although the financial conversion is only a few months old, Scheulen said the JMS organization is already experiencing the benefits. “We’re gaining efficiency daily,” he said, noting that facility and financial management staff is already performing functions in a fraction of the time previously required.

Heather Bax, JMS Director of Clinical Services, pointed out that efficiencies are also beginning to be achieved with AHT Clinical Management installed in the spring of 2015, saying, “With AHT Smart Charting and AHT Quality Assurance implementation, we’re beginning to see our volume of paper seriously shrink while our quality of care is becoming more consistent and measurable.”

In both financial and clinical management, Scheulen and his staff are seeing a reduction in errors – a factor that translates into better financial performance, improved care and better staff efficiency. Staff buy-in has been excellent, and the organization is starting to reap the benefits, particularly in areas such as speed of billing to enhance cash flow and accounts receivable monitoring and collection.

Scheulen expressed another important benefit his organization is experiencing: “This technology is helping us achieve accountability throughout the network, with every facility dealing with data and financial reporting in exactly the same way. That gives me and my team increased ability to monitor, manage and respond more effectively.”

And how has this major technology installation gone for JMS? Scheulen said it simply, “AHT answered the bell.”

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