You want your addiction treatment center to be as successful as possible. What does this mean? You want to deliver exceptional care that brings your clients the results they want and need. You want to do this in a manner that is compliant with all state and federal rules and regulations. The safety and health of your clients is paramount. You also want to deliver this care in a manner that is efficient and cost-effective without compromising care. And, you want a healthy financial bottom line, because if your business isn’t profitable, then you can’t keep helping people.
Avenues To Achieve Your Goals
You work hard, your staff works hard. However, there are generally both internal and external issues and challenges that can inhibit the achievement of those goals.
Sometimes, the best way to get things back on track and make improvements is to have an outside entity come in and give you a thorough and impartial quality assurance evaluation.
How Can My Facility Benefit From Quality Assurance Evaluation?
There are many benefits to quality assurance evaluation, but one significant benefit is in the realm of licensure and reimbursement. Having a quality assurance evaluation in place helps to maintain these benefits.
A quality assurance evaluation may cover any or all aspects of your treatment center operations. This can include documentation and information, billing and reimbursement, intake and admissions, client rights and responsibilities, client care and experience and many other areas.
Evaluation Of Documentation
Documentation is a vital part of your business. Proper documentation is a necessity. Audits can reveal poor practices or oversights — but you don’t want that. Internal auditing is helpful, but not always effective. Outside evaluations allow you to gain the benefits of an audit as far as uncovering errors, inefficient practices and oversights, but in a way that allows you to create better systems and correct bad habits or errors. Ensuring quality and accuracy in documentation not only allows you to deliver better service to your clients, it also allows you to stay compliant and in business.
Documentation can also show the effectiveness and consistency of practices such as screening and intake, admissions procedures, procedures for denial of services, referral and linkage, handling of grievances and client satisfaction.
This type of evaluation also covers patient privacy, ethical practices and other similar issues.
Delivery And Quality Of Care
It’s important to periodically monitor and evaluate the quality of care given to clients. Quality of services, consistency of services, distribution of available resources, etc. are all areas that should be evaluated.
A number of areas can be evaluated here, including the quality of the actual services themselves. Are they evidence-based and scientifically sound? Do they meet the criteria for therapeutic holistic care? Are they delivered in an efficient manner? How is access to that care and is it consistent?
Client comfort and safety are also evaluated and measured.
Staffing, Communication, Management, And Workflow
Quality assurance can assist with issues such as productivity, time management, communication between executive, clinical and hourly staff, distribution of work and operational workflow. Interpersonal relations are evaluated.
Measuring And Reporting Results
Thorough quality assurance evaluation includes detailed reporting of findings and suggestions on how you can improve. Creating a plan for improvements and implementation helps you get on track and make your treatment center the best it can be.
A quality assurance evaluation gives you peace of mind. You can better serve your clients while maintaining compliance and licensing requirements, and also increase your chances of sought-after accreditations. It will help you increase admissions, improve marketing and public relations and ensure the longevity and success of your treatment business.
While internal evaluation and inventory are certainly useful, nothing beats the thorough evaluation from an outside party. A quality assurance team is able to look at your treatment center with a discerning and impartial eye. They know what to look for and how to improve. Getting an outside perspective is often necessary in order to solve problems and brainstorm solutions.