GAIN INSIGHT AND TIME WITH CLOUD ACCOUNTING

“We’re a small company with complex healthcare accounting requirements. When we prepared to make a switch, I wanted best-in-class cloud software that would work for us, vs. the team working for our financial system. Based on past experience with Microsoft GP’s reporting limitations, it was an easy decision to choose Sage Intacct’s flexible, reliable reporting and modern accounts payable.”

-Hickory Creek

Gaining Flexibility in the Midst of Evolving Healthcare Requirements

The Hickory Creek Healthcare Foundation operates several skilled nursing facilities that play an important role in serving middle-income families throughout Indiana and Ohio. However, the lean organization struggled to keep up with changing healthcare reporting requirements when it was using a decades-old clinical and financial system from American HealthTech. This on-premises software was primarily built around electronic medical records, and didn’t support Hickory Creek’s critical operational reporting needs.

For instance, the finance team found it tedious to prepare individual cost reporting for Medicaid and Medicare. And in order to get valuable information to the operating teams, Hickory Creek’s CFO had to create eight complex reports, and then run them one at a time for each of the organization’s sixteen facilities. It was also challenging to keep track of duplicate vendor relationships and manage accounts payable across all of the company’s care centers.

“While our old system did a bit of everything, it did none of it exceptionally well, and just didn’t provide the metrics or reports our stakeholders needed,” said Keith Yoder, CFO at Hickory Creek. To address these shortcomings, the organization made a big move and in a single year replaced its all-in-one software with three powerful cloud solutions that perfectly met Hickory’s Creek’s specific needs–Sage Intacct as the company’s financial backbone, PointClickCare for clinical administration and billing, and Proliant for payroll. A Sage Intacct consulting partner helped them get up and running quickly, and set up several custom reports.

Facilitating a Deeper Understanding of Long-Term Care

Sage Intacct’s best-in-class cloud ERP software delivered reporting and accounts payable efficiencies that immediately resulted in a monthly close that was 3-5 days faster than the finance team even thought possible. They were also impressed with how quickly Sage Intacct delivered the unique industry reporting Hickory Creek needed for each of it’s many facilities.

“Many organizations in the long-term care industry struggle to get a clear understanding of how their business is doing using out-of-the-box reporting solutions, but we were able to easily adopt important reporting best practices with Sage Intacct’s flexible reporting,” shared Yoder. “Now, we get the same reporting package for all of our facilities at one push of a button, and are saving 5-10 hours on report preparation each month. What’s even better is that we have visibility into more current information, and can run a report every day if we want to see where we stand in real-time.”

The company’s reporting package includes critical financial data, including summary revenues and ancillary expenses for each facility, as well as wages and employee benefits. It also breaks out revenue by income source (private, Medicaid, Medicare) and salaries by type (nursing, administrative, dietary, etc.), with actuals-to-budget comparisons across various dimensions. As a result of this approach, Hickory Creek can see at-a-glance what’s happening in the business and slice and dice financials to see exactly where any emerging labor or expense issues come from.

Adding Patient Census Data to Empower Operational Leaders

Sage Intacct’s reporting also brings significant benefits to the operations side of the business by allowing the finance team to import valuable industry metrics like “patient days.” This lets them calculate key performance indicators like “cost per patient, per day” (PPD)–a metric that truly drives the business–right in the system rather than spending hours on data analysis in Excel.

All of Hickory Creek’s reports provide visibility into monthly totals, as well as trending comparisons to budgeted PPD for each line item. With detailed operating statements for each cost center and every revenue or expense category, the team can monitor and address trends more quickly, i.e. a food cost line item that fluctuates more than expected from month to month.

“Sage Intacct helps us provide more useful information to the business in a variety ways. When I see an item that’s over budget, I can just click and drill down to the original invoice for more insight,” said Yoder. “Now we can understand what the numbers are telling us in an instant, without having to dig through multiple different systems or file cabinets to find out what a certain expense is for.”

About Hickory Creek Healthcare Foundation

Hickory Creek is a non-profit, community-based organization committed to providing quality and compassionate long-term care and rehabilitation services to all of its residents. It operates 16 skilled nursing homes in Indiana and Ohio.Learn how Sage Intacct’s cloud-based financial management solution has helped hundreds of healthcare organizations solve their growing pain challenges.

More To Explore

A PARTNER YOU CAN TRUST

e2b teknologies is a passionate and experienced team of industry leaders and business advisers providing expert insight, informing companies of advancements within the industry and how they can benefit from them.