Finding the Right EHR Platform

Staff and leadership at the Life Management Center of NW Florida (LMC) were dissatisfied across the board with their existing EHR platform, which was clunky, not user-friendly for clinicians and billing teams, caused data integrity issues for reporting teams, and was difficult or impossible to update. “We couldn’t trust the FASAMS reports or the data, we didn’t have the support we needed, or the relationships we needed, and it was time for a change,” said Suzanne Patterson, Senior Data Analyst for LMC.

Life Management Center chose Qualifacts to carry it into the future and went live on the Credible EHR platform in 2012. More than a decade later, through a Category 5 hurricane and its aftermath, Credible continues to deliver ease of use, data integrity, and above all the partnership and relationships with Qualifacts that were promised, to remain the right solution.

“Photos from 2018’s Hurricane Michael came up in my social media for the five-year anniversary this month, and it took me right back to how Qualifacts was there for us through the destruction,” Patterson said. “Staff lost their homes. Parts of our community were wiped off the face of the earth. We lost the roofs off three of our four buildings. We were working from tents. Qualifacts reached out to us, and they made it possible for us to continue serving our clients during that time.”

“The hurricane had such a major impact on our community, and this five-year anniversary was a very big reminder,” said Victoria Hess, Data Analyst for LMC. “It was a unique situation, and Qualifacts found ways to assist us when we were in our most difficult time period as an agency.”

Florida State FASAMS Reporting with Credible EHR Platform

When Florida switched on its Financial and Services Accountability Management System (FASAMS) in 2021, to track data specific to State and Federal reporting requirements, providers, agencies and EHR platforms were confronted with major changes. Today, more changes from the state are predicted.

“Credible has done an outstanding job with its FASAMS integration into the EHR. Other platforms have not kept up,” Patterson said. “We could not be where we are with FASAMS were it not for the Credible state reporting team, and all their hard work and continued efforts. They took us under their wings, and we are soaring. With more changes coming from the state, we are already in discussions on how we will adapt together.”

“Working with the Credible state reporting team is always a pleasure – they are on point and responsive,” Hess said. “We know we will get through the upcoming FASAMS changes together.”

LMC is part of a large and growing Credible peer network in Florida that shares knowledge and solutions that they manage and configure themselves: “As we adapt to changing compliance requirements and payment rules, we are in frequent communication with our peers. We continuously learn from each other as we update our documentation and refine our reporting, while striving for ongoing improvement in our outcomes,” Patterson said.

“I come from a time where charting was done with paper and ink, in massive files that took up the whole end of a building,” Patterson said. “With Credible, our practitioners and therapists can spend more time with people, instead of looking for that elusive paper chart.”

Training, Leadership, and Succession Planning

“Credible is easy to learn, it’s easy to use on a daily basis, and it’s easy to find solutions when something needs solving,” Patterson said. More than a decade past its GoLive date on Credible, LMC has retained longstanding staff but has also brought on new team members and specialists who weren’t there for the initial implementation and training. “We have been able to maintain the same level of training for new staff as we had for those who were here for the original GoLive.”

Relationship and Partnership

“I am the number one advocate for our agency staying with Credible – for the software, which is the best I’ve seen, and for its greatest asset, which is its people,” Patterson said. “Each encounter with the Credible teams we work with for support, for business intelligence, and for contracting when we add new optional features is positive and solution-oriented, which makes the whole day so much better.”

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