David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health | Challenges
From weathering Florida hurricanes to partnering through a statewide transition to new data gathering and reporting requirements, the David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health (DLC) and Qualifacts and the Credible EHR solution have conquered challenges to succeed together for more than a decade.
DLC initially chose the Credible EHR solution because it needed to step up to an enterprise solution that would support clinical documentation, timely and accurate billing and reimbursement. DLC also wanted to free staff from managing servers on premises, and to gain the benefits of the “work from anywhere” access a cloud-hosted SaaS solution would bring.
“Credible had so much to offer in clinical, reporting and billing capabilities to make us more efficient and make work easier for our staff,” said Joseph Garcia, DLC Director of Information Technology. The “access at any time from anywhere” capabilities DLC gained with Credible became an urgent necessity when severe hurricanes struck the region.
“Credible had so much to offer in clinical, reporting and billing capabilities to make us more efficient and make work easier for our staff,”
Credible was up and available from the cloud for DLC when Hurricane Ian struck in 2022 and devastation rained down upon the region. “When we fell back to running our inpatient services on generator power, Credible was available for us in the cloud,” Garcia said.
Credible was also up and available to DLC staff when Hurricane Irma stormed through the region in 2017. “We were able to keep providing care, and we were able to keep documenting,” Garcia said.
DLC providers were already longstanding Credible users when Florida’s plans for the state-wide Financial and Services Accountability Management System (FASAMS) were announced. FASAMS went live in January 2019, and DLC and Credible were ready to meet the new requirements for data gathering and reporting. “We worked on preparing for it together with our Credible partners, side by side,” Garcia said.
Overall gains that DLC has achieved with Qualifacts and Credible through the lengthy partnership include insights into organizational success that can be celebrated and visibility into areas where attention is needed. Garcia and his team collaborated with leadership to build automated and scheduled reports for DLC through Credible’s Business Intelligence (BI) tools. “When those reports land in people’s inboxes, the people who use them to guide decisions can clearly see what they need to do next to achieve continued sustainability,” Garcia said.
DLC’s decade-plus partnership with Qualifacts and Credible has also brought a long list of ongoing enhancements and additions. Significant updates to treatment planning in the Credible EHR solution have brought DLC the benefits of workflow enhancements and faster documentation, with continued ties to the Golden Thread. “We had good visibility into new features and functionality in the Credible Plan while they were in development, and the custom elements we could update and configure ourselves,” Garcia said. “We’ve lifted our efficiency, while our clinical documentation continues to support accurate and timely billing.”
“Being able to create new forms and signature workflows and update billing matrixes gives us efficiencies in managing and administering our EHR, in care, in claims, and in reimbursement.”
As DLC has grown and expanded, the value of making self-managed changes to workflows in the Credible EHR solution has continued to increase. “Being able to create new forms and signature workflows and update billing matrixes gives us efficiencies in managing and administering our EHR, in care, in claims, and in reimbursement.” Garcia said.
The future looks bright for DLC. “As our organization changes and grows, and compliance changes keep coming, we will look to Qualifacts and Credible to continue to support us.”
About David Lawrence Centers for Behavioral Health (DLC)
Based in Southwest Florida, DLC is a not-for-profit, leading provider of compassionate, advanced, and exceptional mental health, substance use, and integrated healthcare solutions, available for children, adolescents and adults. DLC’s innovative treatment includes inpatient, outpatient, residential, and community-based services.
