Casamba vs. Net Health/Optima: Which is the Right Choice for Your Therapy Team?
While your skilled-nursing facility software solution may contain modules for integrating patient health records with therapist scheduling and documentation, the truth of the matter is that nursing-oriented software is not sufficient to manage the complex needs of therapy scheduling, documentation, and billing needed for therapists to demonstrate functional improvement and receive reimbursement. For a successful and compliant program, SNFs need therapy software that streamlines operational, clinical, and billing workflows in order to allow therapists to focus more of their time on patient care and improving outcomes.
While there are multiple options for therapy software, there are really only two winners that have risen to the top for consideration when shopping for therapy management software within the SNF setting: Casamba and Net Health (formerly Rehab Optima).
In this article, we will focus on the fundamental areas you should consider when choosing between the two in order to determine which software will be the best fit with your facility’s needs.
Implementation and Training
Casamba provides each facility with access to Computer Based Training (CBT) curriculum that will guide them through key CBT videos assigned by role. They also provide Quick cards for Staff, Directors of Rehab (DORs), and Corporate roles, with step-by-step instructions for performing primary functions. Sessions on best practice workflow and a Q&A opportunity for each role are also available. The Casamba Community users can access the Knowledge page for articles and FAQs on Clinical, Financial, Labor, Regulatory, Technology, and Reporting, as well as New Release notes. Additionally there are frequent webinars called “Lunch and Learn” that focus on specific areas of learning, typically directed to the DOR. If despite these resources you cannot find the answer to your question, help is only a phone call away.
Net Health’s onboarding process is a bit different from Casamba’s process. There are built-in help videos and an automated help section within their product which allows users to do a quick search when looking for various answers. As with Casamba, if all else fails, calling the Help Desk is always an option. If you’ve been in the long-term care rehab space for awhile, you may recall there was a time when the customer service desk at Optima stood head and shoulders above all of its competitors, including Casamba. However, Casamba seems to have poured resources into that department and now both of their customer service offerings are on par with each other.
Integrations
It would be hard to pick a winner here, as both companies provide integrations with all the major SNF nursing software options, such as American HealthTech (AHT), PointClickCare (PCC) and MatrixCare. The biggest question to ask is whether or not there are any additional charges for completing the integration? Also, ask to see samples of how and when nurses can view therapy documentation to make sure it meets your facility’s needs.
To fully utilize your therapy software to manage the therapy department means also capturing the therapists’ daily labor in the software. If the therapists are the facility’s employees, then they are likely already clocking into a time clock system for the building; in that case, asking them to clock in and out of two systems daily can result in labor errors and more missed punches. For that reason, we recommend deciding how your therapists will log their labor (punching into the facility’s time clock or using the therapy software as a time clock), and then connecting the two systems together. Both Casamba and Net Health/Optima can integrate with most facility time clocks (such as Kronos), allowing your therapists to clock in and out on the software. This can be another time saver that helps improve productivity and productivity management.
Compliance
Overall, it is important to choose a system with checks and balances in place in order to decrease errors and minimize denials. Having software with built-in compliance alerts and guardrails that prompt therapists of regulatory changes or inaccuracies will help staff to complete their documentation correctly - and it will eliminate guffaws such as missed visits or missed notes.
Both companies prioritize maintaining compliance with Medicare regulations. Casamba has a full-time compliance officer whose job it is to keep up-to-date on the ever-changing regulatory landscape. Each quarter they hold a Compliance Forum to review all new or proposed changes for your DOR and/or administrative team. Net Health/Optima is also regularly updating clients through emails and webinars on the latest compliance issues.
Physician Signature Tracking
Both compliance and billing-related, tracking physician signatures on POCs and UPOCs is extremely important. Casamba allows physicians to log into their portal and sign documents electronically using their Online Physician's Signature Portal Software. By eliminating wasted time of faxing and tracking signatures on POCs and UPOCs, your team will be more efficient and physicians usually appreciate the ease of communication as well. Net Health has a similar portal that they call Clinisign. However, Net Health has taken it one step further by allowing the software to track faxed signatures as well through their Clinifax feature.
Using either system, pen and paper (definitely not recommended at this point), or some other software package, tracking physician signatures is something all providers have to deal with. Doing this poorly can cost the provider tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Scheduling
There have been a lot of great updates in the last few years in scheduling modules from both companies. This is one area that can be a real demand on your DOR’s time. And the more efficiently they can plan staffing levels based on caseload needs, then the more efficient your department can run.
In Casamba, one can complete a schedule that is patient specific, therapist specific, facility specific or discipline specific. Automated alerts and color coding can also facilitate efficient labor management.
Net Health’s smart scheduling guidance continuously calculates scheduling capacity and alerts staff when a therapist is in danger of reaching their limit.
Analytics
These days running a business efficiently often revolves around data. Both Casamba and Net Health have options for analyzing data.
With Casamba’s Reporting and Dashboards, users have access to key features including more than 200 reports and customizable dashboards. One of my favorite features in Casamba is the ability to schedule, auto-generate, and email reports. For customers with greater requirements and/or comprehensive PDPM data tracking needs, they offer Casamba Analytics. This new offering delivers many of the key features available in Reporting and Dashboards plus offerings like auto-loaded pages (with filters), comprehensive outcomes tracking, and an improved user interface.
Analytics helps measure the success of your business and maximize its potential by leveraging your data. It also benchmarks results against other industry providers, offering meaningful perspective. Analytics can help you identify and track positive business trends while allowing you to act quickly on results.
In the last several years, Net Health has developed their Business Intelligence (BI) Tools. This is basically a data warehouse that allows you, the user, to create any report that you can think of. It allows the user to slice and dice the data in more ways than one can count, which is great, but could also be overwhelming for inexperienced users.
Like the Help Desk, in years past we would normally say that Net Health has had a leg up in management reporting and data analytics. However, Casamba has come on strong in the last few years making it tough to identify a clear winner here as well.
Reimbursement/Denial Management
As the first major payment model change in the SNF industry in two decades, PDPM has revolutionized how therapists manage reimbursement levels and maintain profitability. Between authorization limits, claim denials, and increasing operating expenses, it is more important than ever to submit claims correctly the first time.
Both systems allow management to configure individual payer plans to support contracted rates and automatically transmit charges as needed to ensure complete and compliant claims. When there is a denial, each system has their own module for managing if needed.
User Satisfaction
Ultimately the best software for you is the software that is intuitive and efficient and fits your budget. It should allow for patient preferences in scheduling, tracking of patient outcomes and providing immediate access to patient records during care, even without an internet connection. Both of these systems do that.
And sometimes a decision comes down to determining what your team or prn staff is already familiar with. Often one system over the other is popular in a particular geographic area. If all of your staff is already proficient with one system, going with that one may be the most cost effective as you will not have extensive training in order to bring your team up to speed.
We have heard therapists say that Casamba is more user friendly for front-line staff, but that Net Health/Optima has better management reports and tools. But that may not hold as true today, since both systems have poured tremendous resources into shoring up their shortcomings against their competitors.
Customization
Whether you have a contract therapy provider or an in-house program with a partner helping to guide your operations, you will want to ensure that your therapy partner is staying abreast of software and industry updates and is willing to act as a liaison with your therapy software company in order to make customized updates to improve the settings and performance. While both systems out-of-the-box are functional, it is good practice to have someone verify that the correct documentation workflow is in place, and that any necessary customizations have been implemented for your team’s needs. For example, we typically modify our licensed versions of software based on industry changes as well as recent DOJ or MAC settlements and actions. In doing so, we are able to ensure that therapists’ documentation is relevant, compliant, and has the best chance of getting you paid (and able to keep those dollars) at the first submission of a claim. If you have your own license (instead of your therapy partner bringing software with them), be sure to have them work on your behalf when updates are needed to modify your own licensed copy.
In Closing - What have we used and what do we use?
The short answer is: Both! Our clinical team members have had experience with both options in the field, and currently use both options. Mark was originally a Net Health/Optima user way back when the product was called “Giftrap” many moons ago, and we have used Casamba over the years as well. Seagrove Rehab Partners is currently a paying customer of both Net Health/Optima and Casamba, and we have no other financial relationship with either of them. We choose which product to use at each site based on what best fits each facility or company’s particular situation, since there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
No matter which one you choose, having a good quality therapy software for your SNF will save time and allow your therapists to focus on their most important task: improving the lives of all those they serve.
