What is MAT?
MAT (Medication Assisted Treatment) uses a combination of medicines and counseling to treat not only substance abuse disorders but also prevent opioid overdoses. The use of MAT has shown that the whole-patient approach is successfully able to treat disorders and sustain recovery.
The medication prescribed is capable of normalizing brain chemistry while at the same time relieving some of the physiological cravings and blocking the euphoric effects of opioids and alcohol. The medications used in MAT are FDA approved and each patient episode of care is customized to meet the needs of the patient.
When MAT isn’t implemented, patients receive prescriptions from their primary care provider and then are referred to a behavioral health specialist. This process can be burdensome for the patient, as it can delay their treatment and edge them back into old addictions if medication isn’t received and monitored in a timely manner. MAT allows behavioral health counselors to be brought into the room during the first encounter, fostering immediate mental health support. This step combined with physical treatments provides a patient a holistic treatment plan.
TenEleven’s MAT module includes industry-leading technology that provides business intelligence, comprehensive dashboards, regulatory compliance, and a variety of features for providers to support patients in the most comprehensive way possible.
Optimizing MAT Modality
When an agency’s goal is to combat an opioid addiction, it is critical to evolve to become patient-centric. By using an integrated approach to MAT, you’ll ensure the patient is receiving the care they need and will be able to address both physical and behavioral health challenges. Our MAT module offers a three-pronged approach to provide visibility of the medical, clinical, and billing aspects for patients.
Medical Management
The medical management aspect ensures healthcare providers have visibility into prior medications a patient has taken, are able to dispense medications (liquid and/or tablets) and have the ability to place a patient on hold – whether it has to do with a clinical or billing issue. Additionally, we have an option that will automatically place a patient on hold for missing their medication for a configurable amount of consecutive days.
With the support of TenEleven’s eCR, providers can take advantage of a comprehensive Methadone Dispensing Module, offering features that can support the MAT method every step of the way.
Our dispensing feature offers a secure check-in process, allowing providers to confirm the identity of the patient with an on-screen photo prior to dispensing liquid or tablet forms of medication, depending on the medication and dosage. The module also connects providers with SciLog or Ivek pumps; allows patient check-in functionality, and even provides the ability to notify the patient if there are scheduled appointments, they need to be aware of or any holds on their account that need to be addressed.
The module also features:
- Writing future orders and schedules
- Safeguards for comparing medications and orders to previous occurrences
- Ability to dispense multiple types of medication for the same patient
- Pre-pouring medication for future dates in those states that allow this practice
- Randomization of toxicology testing configurable at the patient level
- Printing of multiple size bottle labels based on your state requirements
- Ability to write a one-time order for medications
Our Inventory management feature can streamline and automate the accounting of all medication for every patient and even from the bottle that it came in. Some of these specific features include:
- Real-time inventory tracking down to the bottle level
- Transfer to/from bottles
- Bulk add of new inventory
- Auditing of inventory edits
- We track medication dispensed to the
- Account for the quarantine and destruction of medication inventory per Federal guidelines
Medications can be problematic for so many reasons – they’re addictive, patients can forget to take them, and incorrect dosages can lead to all sorts of other problems. With TenEleven’s eCR, the Methadone Dispensing Module combined with MAT ensures you have the electronic support needed to streamline operations and have the necessary safeguards in place to protect you and your patients.
Auditing
It’s critical for providers to have a complete view of the medication inventory to prevent misuse and ensure patients are receiving exactly what has been prescribed to them. Our MAT module records and reports every transaction—providing accurate information for provider audits.
Reports include:
- Users who’s dispense altered from the written order or schedule
- Users who edit medication inventory
- Users who dispensed from the Medication Administration Dispense screen
- List of patients who have received medication and what bottle it came from
- Amount of medication dispensed from the medication inventory at your facility and window level
Should there be an issue, providers will have comprehensive reports to conduct an audit and identify who is responsible and where the issue took place.
Clinical Management
Our MAT module offers clinical management support that providers need in order to focus on the counseling, behavioral and psychiatric therapy for the patient. This includes the ability to schedule individual and group sessions, receive reminders that a patient has arrived and that a note is required. The Compliance Center allows the clinician and the Compliance team ensure Assessments and Treatment Plans are completed on time. eCR enforces compliance by not allowing a clinician to complete a progress note if it required the associated with a Treatment Plan goal. With a fully integrated medication dispensing and clinical approach providers can easily provide a holistic approach in caring for your patients.
Billing Management
As more payers begin to reimburse for MAT services, the rules associated with how a charge must be created become more complex. That’s why we allow the billing configuration of MAT services to be setup at the Payer level, including:
- Do you need to bundled services (medication and clinical) or not?
- Does the payer require one claim line for each service and/or medication or one for all?
- Is it one set amount for the week with or without services?
- Are there minimum dispense or unit requirements?
- Do you need the ability to set one rate for payer A, and a different amount for Payer B for the same CPT code?
- Do you need the ability to bill clients who self-pay differently?
Consider what it means to have access to an effective electronic medical record (EMR) for every patient. It will ensure you have a 360-degree view of your patients, allowing you to support patients properly while also boosting the productivity of your facility.
At TenEleven, we understand the MAT regulations for practitioners, including the Controlled Substances Act as well as the SUPPORT Act. How you bill for MAT is critical as it can affect your profitability as a clinic or agency.
Many facilities spend too much time in the manual processing of billing limiting your ability to focus on denial management claims. Having the ability to efficiently process and send claims to payers allows you to now focus on denied claims and outstanding patient financial responsibilities.
Billing for MAT services is becoming increasingly complex and difficult to automatically create the appropriate charges depending on the type of medication, the services a patient received and the payer rules associated with delivering these services. This can be overwhelming to manually attempt to bill without an EHR that addresses these challenges. This is why it is even more beneficial to have a 360-degree view of your patients and the ability to setup billing rules at the payer level. Being able to setup the billing configuration once allows for an efficient billing workflow that makes sense. Creating the correct patient charge and 837 billing file the first time means you get your money faster, decreasing your account receivables all leading to increased revenue.
Whole Patient Approach
Using an EHR that supports a wholistic approach, doctors, nurses and therapists can all efficiently access patient data on one chart. This clinical integration, ensures a patient-centric treatment approach increasing positive patient outcomes.
The client chart provides:
- History of medications
- Treatment plan and assessment compliance
- Medication orders and schedules
- Past, present and future scheduled appointments
- Phase of medication treatment
- Past and present patient holds (manual and automatic)
- Past and present patient check-in’s
- Billable and non-billable progress notes
Optimize Your MAT Modality
There are plenty of ways for you to optimize your MAT modality – once of which includes exploring technology that will streamline operations and help you to focus on a patient-centric approach.
If you’re already using an EHR, you’re halfway there. You simply need to implement a MAT module that will provide a holistic view of your patients and practice. At TenEleven, our industry-leading MAT module conveniently integrates with our EHR, providing a robust set of features that will increase the visibility and efficiency of your business.
Contact us today to get a free demo and learn how the right technology can improve customer-centric care.
