Electronic Health Record for Mental Health Providers
As leading mental health software for human services agencies, the scope of AWARDS is deep and wide, with the ability to track and manage data related to virtually all services supporting people with mental health concerns.
Software Features for Mental Health Providers
- Tracks basic demographics, emergency contacts, guardianship info, service providers, entitlements, consents
- Documents all aspects of Residential, Day Hab, Community Hab, Service Coordination programs
- Directly link daily services documentation with related goals in the service plan
- Medical module equipped with E-Prescribing, medication administration, e-MAR, immunizations, diet, hospitalizations, vital signs, and more
- Employment module tracks schools, training, jobs, employers, earnings history
- Built-in billing manages Medicaid, State Waiver, Third-Party, Direct Contract billing
- Proprietary FormBuilder tool helps create program-specific assessment tools and reports
General Features
Our software has been developed to meet the complex needs of any human services organisation.
- Standardization of agency data collection & charting procedures
- More staff accountability through reporting, audit trails & reminders
- Easier access to your data, accessible from any location at the agency
- Increased efficiency allowing staff more time to provide supports & services
- Easy audits available through AWARDS’ robust reporting functionality
- Real-time collaboration across multi-site organizations
- Standard workflow for all agency employees
- Safe, secure & HIPAA compliant data storage
- An EHR package certified for Meaningful Use
- Seamless integration between clinical data and electronic billing
- Web-based cloud technology, eliminating hardware & infrastructure maintenance costs
Billing
For all agencies looking to bill directly for the services they provide, we offer BillingBuilder™, our Build-Your-Own Billing module that allows users to configure billing files for dozens of payers in addition to the direct link to Medicaid and Medicare already built into the software. Your agency’s clinical and programmatic data will flow seamlessly from the AWARDS electronic chart into the proper structure in the billing module. From there, you can use the module to create claims to be paid.
With BillingBuilder™, AWARDS establishes a more direct relationship between program services and billing activities. Because both fiscal and program service staff rely on a single system for billing-related information, there are fewer opportunities for errors in communication, and less time and energy is expended on reporting of this information.
Furthermore, your Foothold support team will work with you to address the inevitable changes in regulations, ensuring your agency’s continued compliance. Results for your agency include more internal control and greater transparency in the billing process as well as increased success with audits.
Customer Support
You could have the greatest software in the world, but if you don’t have people to train you and answer your questions, you won’t get what you need from it. With origins and roots in human services, no software vendor is better prepared to support you than Foothold Technology. When you choose AWARDS, you get more than software–you get a whole system of help that is always just a call or a click away.
Your Senior Customer Success Manager (CSM)
From Day 1, you get a team of seasoned experts led by a Senior Customer Success Manager (CSM) dedicated to you for the life of our work together. Your CSM will serve as your single point of contact to:
- Coordinate all your implementation and training activities.
- Offer expertise from a combined 60+ years of experience working with agencies like yours.
- Work with you to think through your agency’s growth and challenges.
Your Implementation Consultant (IC)
The average length of an AWARDS implementation is four months. To get your team up and running, you’ll work with an Implementation Consultant (IC) as well as your CSM. Your IC will:
- Learn, evaluate, and understand the programs, policies, and goals of your agency.
- Walk you through all the functionality of AWARDS.
- Configure the software to reflect your agency’s unique needs.
- Assist you in developing a training and roll-out plan.
- Prepare you to meet your desired milestones.
Your Training and Support
Our “Train-the-Trainer” model will give you onsite expertise of AWARDS and help minimize the problems caused by staff turnover.
- Classroom-style training in Foothold’s training facility or at a site of your choosing.
- Extensive online Help library with step-by-step instructions and video tutorials.
- FootholdConnect series of free, ongoing trainings offered via web conference.
- A Quality Assurance team (also known as Help Desk) to provide technical support.
Interoperability
AWARDS is interoperable with any Health Information Exchange (HIE). If your organization is using AWARDS to manage the data related to the services you provide, you have the tools to participate in any Health Information Exchange without duplicate data entry.AWARDS will serve as a single portal to send data in any format required, safely and securely.
Security
We take the responsibility of safeguarding the electronic protected health information (ePHI) data in our care very seriously. In fact, we have recorded one of the highest scores ever seen when our security measures were tested against the standards of HIPAA and the Federal Department of Health and Human Services.
You can be sure that your agency’s data, and the sensitive information on the individuals you serve, is secure with Foothold. Security isn’t just something we care about, it’s woven into every aspect of our operations.
Compliance
To ensure compliance with federal and local requirements, updates to AWARDS are performed behind the scenes, while our Client Services team communicates with you about how these changes might affect your workflow. Because Foothold grew out of human service agencies, we can be proactive about preparing our clients for upcoming changes in technology and the industry. AWARDS is HIPAA-compliant, is federally certified as an Electronic Health Record (EHR) for Meaningful Use and offers full interoperability with any other federally certified system for participation in Health Information Exchanges (HIE) and RHIOs.
Bowery Residents’ Committee
Year Founded: 1971
Location: New York
Consumers Served: Over 700 annually
Annual Operating Budget: Over $65 million
The Situation: How Are Tenants Really Doing?
In 1971, a group of homeless men started Bowery Residents’ Committee (BRC) to improve their lives. Over 40 years later, BRC operates 27 programs throughout the New York metropolitan area, and is a leading provider of housing and services to over 10,000 New Yorkers. With a constant eye towards improving and enhancing the services they provide, BRC wanted to better understand the outcomes of their programs. They selected the peer-reviewed Multnomah Community Ability Scale (MCAS-R) to help them evaluate how their tenants were really doing as a result of their program interventions.
The Solution: An Integrated Evaluation Tool
A Foothold customer since 2001, BRC had over a decade’s worth of data available in their AWARDS database. They had already instituted a rigorous, agency-wide data quality and management process that included monthly reports of the data in AWARDS referenced by BRC staff, and quarterly performance reviews by program directors and senior management.
When the MCAS-R evaluation tool was selected for their outcomes evaluation project, it made sense to build the tool into AWARDS and utilize the AWARDS reporting features to help analyze the data. BRC chose to pilot the evaluation tool at their Home Plus scattered-site apartment program, and then add it to their other permanent housing and transitional housing programs. Staff would complete the MCAS-R evaluation form in AWARDS for clients at intake, during service plan reviews every quarter, and at discharge.
The Result: Data-Driven Improvements
By completing the MCAS-R evaluation within AWARDS, BRC staff had a variety of reporting options available to them. They were able to develop a system to monitor individual stability score fluctuations, provide customized levels of care based on scoring outcomes, and ultimately inform ongoing service plan development and targeted interventions based on the outcomes.
With this data, the programs have been able to analyze behaviors and symptoms in a deeper context than just the diagnosis, and identify ways to develop programs to meet tenants’ evolving needs. The project was so successful that BRC has expanded the use of the tool to other residential program areas at the agency.
Goodwill of Greater New York & Northern New Jersey
Year Founded: 1902
Clients Served: 136,000
Annual Operating Budget: $90 million
Using AWARDS Since: 2010
The Situation: Complex documentation requirements
Goodwill launched a new kind of outpatient Mental Health program and was using AWARDS to manage the program’s cases and generate Medicaid claims for those they serve. The agency had shifted from a less sophisticated electronic record to Foothold’s AWARDS software to ensure compliance with all the specific documentation requirements set by the funder. Shortly after making the transition, the agency also experienced a change in leadership which prompted a review of the agency’s data collection and billing processes.
The Solution: Service tracking by AWARDS BillingBuilder™
Every Foothold client is supported by a dedicated Senior Customer Success Manager (CSM). Accompanied by a Foothold Implementation Consultant, the CSM sat down with program staff from the agency to provide an overview of the state’s documentation requirements through the lens of the AWARDS BillingBuilder. This feature tracks the agency’s services throughout a client’s history in the program—documenting everything from intake, progress notes, and Wellness Recovery Action Plans through outcomes—and generates claims automatically. Building on the experience of similar agencies in the Foothold community, the CSM helped identify omissions in the agency’s data entry and suggested ways the staff could streamline reporting. BillingBuilder pulls information directly from the service fields, so once those data omissions were corrected, more claims were generated, including those previously overlooked.
The Result: $22,000 in reimbursements
In addition to helping refine the agency’s operations, the exercise resulted in a recouping of $22,000 in Medicaid reimbursements immediately — with a promise of more complete and accurate billing going forward. The agency staff were united by this success with a renewed appreciation of AWARDS and Foothold’s customer support model.
Testimonials
Those who use AWARDS understand the impact the right mental health EHR software can have on performance and outcomes. Hear from some of our clients how AWARDS has helped their agency.
Beacon of Hope House, New York
Mental Health Association of Columbia-Greene County, New York
The Bridge, New York
Mended Reeds, Ohio
Our Community of Mental Health Providers
