“How much of my allocated budget has been used? What other services can I use any unspent funds on? Will I be penalised if I wish to change what I want to use my budget for?”. These are questions that community and disability care providers deal with on a daily basis.
That’s because clients can’t make head nor tail of their allocated HCP budget. So they become confused, stressed, and anxious over their lack of understanding, disengaged with their services – and that leads to a lack of trust and confidence in the services provides, constant billing enquiries, constant explaining and re-explaining, packages are left unspent.
It’s a frustrating and widespread experience throughout all community and disability care providers in Australia.
To foster greater trust and confidence with clients – and to have an optimal engagement of services (and a far less administrative burden for the Care Coordination team), a new approach to how we communicate budgets, invoices and statements to clients is required – fast!
A new way to communicate HCP budgets, invoices and statements
‘How much of my allowance has been used?’ ‘How much do I have left?’ ‘What does that mean?’. Without a minimum understanding of their statements and charges, no wonder billions get unspent. But not for long – from September 2021 providers won’t be able to hold on to whatever was left unspent on behalf of their clients as the Australian government promises to recoup it all.
Providers must answer questions before clients have the chance to ask them. Branded apps for providers, such as Hayylo’s, with friendly charts connected with back-end financial or CMS systems provide real-time information to clients and their families.
The charts display the percentage of a budget’s use and how much is remaining in an easy-to-understand fashion. This way, clients know exactly how much their remaining budget they have access to and what the coming months look like. Clients are even able to request a call or SMS in their preferred channel – that means no more elevator music for the client on the hold line.
Providing easy-to-use, tailored budgeting information means clients are able to remain more independent, informed, and confident in their care. Having this information allows a client to take control of their service and make more requests thereby utilising their remaining budgets more efficiently.
A good care budget is a budget well spent
This also creates an opportunity for providers to leverage these unspent funds and create generate new revenue. Smart provider’s apps come with features to promote offers to a tailored audience. Clients with a better understanding of their own finances means they will be more comfortable with spending the remaining budget instead of saving it for a rainy day. A more conscious usage of these budgets will also result in greater wellbeing, health outcomes and to evidence the services provided are aligning to their client-centred goals.
With the provider branded app powered by Hayylo, clients are more comfortable managing and utilising their monthly budget all in a single, intuitive space. For example: providers can suggest and enable the purchase of extra services straight from the app based on the outstanding balance. That means more revenue, better care services and no more physically mailed spreadsheets, voicemail messages, or on-hold music.
Hayylo provides a rewarding experience to clients and care coordination teams alike. Learn more and start leveraging the unspent funds under your care.
