Alberta Health Services will expand its use of Strata Health’s HealthFirst application for the efficient province-wide approval of physiotherapy treatment funding requests from clinics.
Albertans are guaranteed a choice of provider when accessing publicly funded physiotherapy. Managing the contracts, funding limits, approvals process, and reconciliation to visits for billing/reimbursement pose challenges for both AHS and the private clinics.
HealthFirst helps to simplify the administration of publicly funded physiotherapy programs. The customizable software allows the region to manage physiotherapy requests from privately contracted clinics in the community by exception, setting rules to streamline automatic approvals where feasible, and to view those exceptions on a single screen, and approve or deny them with the click of a mouse. Lines of communication open up and budgets become easier to manage for both the region and the clinics.
The expanded rollout of the HealthFirst application coincides with the introduction of an AHS-wide ‘Rehabilitation Advice Line’ (RAL), a telephone service providing free rehabilitation advice and general health information for Albertans over 18 years of age. The RAL will have the ability to immediately start a new care request on a patient’s behalf, pre-authorizing them for a clinically appropriate number of visits, thereby contributing to an expeditious onboarding process and improved patient flow.
HealthFirst’s Key Benefits:
- Manage all visit funding requests from private clinics on a single screen, cutting down on emails, faxes, voicemail, and administrative burden.
- Receive complete visibility into budgets and visit thresholds, making monthly reconciliation and billing straightforward and easy.
- Customize to clinical conditions and workflow needs so you can spend more time focusing on improving quality of care and less time on paperwork.
- Manage contracts and funded visit pools in aggregate, adjusting as demand requires.
HealthFirst is software as a service, meaning there is nothing to install and no hardware involved. Clinics access the application via a regular web browser and immediately have access to every request, budgeting detail, and report.
Strata Health’s HealthFirst ensures:
- A standardized level of funded care is available province-wide,
- Patient access to care options unimpeded by administrative factors,
- A shared source of truth across multiple regional zones,
- Streamlined administration of publicly funded physiotherapy visits.
Already available in the Calgary zone, the provincial rollout is scheduled to go live in July 2021. The new rollout will now additionally cover:
- Edmonton zone,
- North zone Fort McMurray, and
- North zone Grande Prairie.
Additionally, HealthFirst will now standardize provincially the following pathways:
- Arthroplasty 1:1,
- Arthroplasty Group,
- General MSK (Med),
- General MSK (High),
- Neurorehabilitation,
- Orthopedic Type 1,
- Orthopedic Type 2, and
- Pelvic Floor Physio.
About Alberta Health Services
Alberta Health Services (AHS) is Canada’s first and largest province-wide, fully integrated health system, responsible for delivering health services to nearly 4.4 million people living in Alberta, as well as to some residents of Saskatchewan, B.C. and the Northwest Territories.
www.albertahealthservices.ca
About Strata Health Solutions
With almost 20 years of experience in the health technology sector, Strata Health is the leading provider of intelligent, digital tools for resource allocation, patient transitions, and patient flow innovation across the care continuum. Strata Health supports healthcare clients on three continents, helping over 12 million patients worldwide get the care they need faster. Strata’s software solutions improve the healthcare experience for patients, clinicians, and health jurisdictions around the world.
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