Point of Care Picks

Scheduling is the heartbeat of a home health agency. It’s the mechanism that aligns caregivers with patients, makes sure care plans are followed, and keeps operations moving without unnecessary gaps or overlaps. When you’re small, manual methods or simple software might be enough. But as the census grows, so does the pressure on scheduling.  The system that once worked fine can quickly spiral into bottlenecks, double-bookings, payroll disputes, and compliance issues. Scalable scheduling systems are nice to have, and they determine whether your agency can grow smoothly or stumble under the weight of its own expansion. 1️⃣ 📈 Scaling Beyond Spreadsheets Early-stage agencies often manage with paper calendars, whiteboards, or Excel. These work fine for 20 patients and a handful of caregivers, but once you cross into triple digits, the cracks show. Every cancellation, shift swap, or call-off becomes a ripple effect that takes hours to untangle. Scalable personal care software systems ...

No two home health agencies run exactly the same. Some focus on skilled nursing, others on personal care, some balance multiple service lines across multiple counties. A one-size-fits-all software system can feel more like a straitjacket than a support tool. That’s why customization matters.  The right tools let agencies fine-tune their workflows, adapt to regulatory changes, and scale without being forced into rigid molds. Below are eight customization tools that transform generic software into a system that truly fits your agency. 1️⃣ ⚙️ Configurable Dashboards Every role in an agency looks at data differently. Schedulers want visibility into caregiver availability. Billers need claims status. Administrators track census growth. Customizable dashboards allow each user to design their own view, surfacing the most relevant metrics and hiding unnecessary clutter. Why it matters: When staff see the information that matters most to their daily work, efficiency rises and errors dro...

HIPAA compliance is an ecosystem of protections woven into every layer of your operations in the software you are using. Patient data passes through multiple points each day: mobile devices in the field, office desktops, cloud servers, and backup archives. Each point carries a risk of exposure if it’s not properly secured.  A truly great HIPAA feature puts up barriers, and verifies that the right people have the right access at the right time. Below are the features that define a HIPAA-strong system, explained in both practical and technical terms. 1️⃣ 🔒 End-to-End Data Encryption Encryption is the front line of HIPAA security, turning patient records into unreadable code for anyone who doesn’t have the right key. Without strong encryption, data traveling between a caregiver’s phone and the agency’s servers (or sitting in cloud storage) is vulnerable to interception.  Great software encrypts both “in transit” and “at rest.” That means whether a nurse is uploading vitals thr...

Electronic Visit Verification (EVV) is one of those requirements that can either run quietly in the background or become a constant source of frustration. The difference comes down to software design. When the right features are built into your platform, EVV verifies care automatically, syncs with billing, and keeps compliance rock solid without slowing your team down. Here are the tools that make the biggest impact. 1️⃣ 📱 Multi-Channel Check-In Options Not every patient home looks the same. Some have stable Wi-Fi, some rely on landlines, and others live where cell service drops out mid-sentence. EVV that supports landline call-ins, mobile app log-ins, and GPS-backed clock-ins ensures caregivers can always verify visits. On the tech side, device tokens confirm caregiver identity, landline calls auto-log the client’s number, and geo-fencing validation confirms the caregiver is at the right address. This flexibility keeps compliance strong without leaving caregivers stranded by te...