ARTICLE | GUIDE
ARTICLE | GUIDE
Steve is CEO & Co-Founder of ianacare. He has scaled companies from the garage stage through IPO, receiving awards including Emerging Tech NEVY, WSJ Top 50 Start-ups, and MITX Technology Award. He began his career working on the first commercially viable speech recognition systems at Nuance and SpeechWorks (now Microsoft). He holds a Master's and Bachelor’s degree from MIT. After confronting his grandfather’s Parkinson’s diagnosis, he became passionate about using technology to address gaps in caregiver support.
Key Takeaways:
The CMS GUIDE model represents a transformative approach to dementia care, emphasizing the needs of both care recipients and their family caregivers. However, providers and GUIDE entities face the challenge of consistently engaging caregivers to meet care delivery requirements across all complexity levels— low, moderate, and high —and maximizing billing opportunities.
The GUIDE program’s billing structure is based on “complexity dyads,” which determine the frequency and type of interactions required to bill for services. For the low tier, providers can bill with a minimum of four contacts per year. However, there is a greater opportunity to bill more frequently if caregiver engagement is sustained beyond the minimum requirements.
But what happens during the other eight months?
Engaging caregivers throughout the year, especially during months without mandatory contact, is crucial to unlocking additional revenue potential and achieving performance-based adjustments.
ianacare’s approach utilizes technology to drive sustained caregiver engagement efficiently and effectively, reducing the reliance on staff-only interactions. We have successfully engaged over 47,000 members, trained more than 6,500 family caregivers, and maintained an average of 21 interactions per care episode. Our approach has proven to support the coordination of critical care tasks, including appointments. By offering caregivers a reliable go-to platform for support, we are keeping families actively engaged throughout the care journey.
The engagement we build with these caregivers in the form of training webinars, resource discovery, and communication with a Care Navigator helps providers meet care delivery requirements more frequently, allowing them to bill for those “off” months as well. This expanded engagement can increase potential revenue from $430 to $1,290 per participant annually.
Beyond financial gains, effective caregiver engagement provides essential practical and emotional support to families, keeping them engaged in the program and maintaining a relationship with clinical staff, ultimately avoiding no-shows and patient churn.
Our engagement engine has demonstrated its value in maintaining high levels of satisfaction and sustained participation, particularly around caregiver education and support, which is a low-cost, effective, and high-impact way to engage family caregivers.
In 2023 alone, our solution provided 9,120 hours of training to caregivers. Our content library is continuously growing, and we’ve built content programs that keep caregivers coming back month after month in the form of on-demand articles, live trainings, and a library of expert-led videos.
Our most popular and highly attended sessions focus on Alzheimer’s and dementia care, with topics including:
Successful caregiver engagement is critical not just for increasing billing opportunities but also for driving performance-based adjustments and meeting GUIDE benchmarks. Providers who leverage ianacare’s technology and engagement solutions position themselves to exceed performance targets, maximizing reimbursements and demonstrating superior care outcomes. By keeping families engaged, providers can secure higher payments, and ensure they aren’t missing out on potential revenue.
Successful caregiver engagement is not just a nice-to-have—it’s a strategic necessity for providers and GUIDE entities looking to maximize their billing opportunities and improve care outcomes. By partnering with ianacare, you can ensure that families receive the support they need while also expanding your revenue potential.
Ready to learn more? Reach out today to explore how ianacare can help you achieve your goals: partnerships@ianacare.com
