A New Era of Accountability: Power for Change’s Empowering Partnership with Timeero
Power for Change is a state-licensed outpatient mental health clinic committed to delivering in-home counseling to hundreds of clients across Wisconsin. With a team of 50 clinicians traveling between Green Bay, Greater Milwaukee, and various points in between, the organization faced significant challenges in promoting accountability and efficiency.
The Intensive In-Home Counseling Program is a cornerstone of Power for Change’s services. This innovative approach is based on the belief that people respond better to treatment at home and foster more significant, lasting change by actively involving their families.
The Accountability Issue
Providing in-home services includes traveling to various, sometimes distant locations.
Before adopting Timeero, Power for Change relied on its clinicians to accurately calculate and report their locations and travel times—a system fraught with potential for error, leading to inaccurate billing and a lack of verifiable data on clinicians’ whereabouts.
“These were very big challenges as we held these 50 clinicians accountable. We trusted their word that they were going to a specific session. They would input their billing, and we would basically have to trust their word on it,” David Pickering explained the challenge.
The issue came to a head when a client reported a therapist hadn’t arrived as expected, highlighting the need for a more reliable tracking system.
Manual reporting also posed burdens for clinicians. Therapists submitted billing after returning home, but some waited until the end of the week to work on their invoices. They needed to remember travel times from days earlier and any unusual events, like a client crisis that may have required a longer session.
“Inaccurate billing or overbilling for travel or session times—those were kind of all over the board,” said David Pickering.
Power for Change found a solution to these issues when it adopted Timeero, tapping into the app’s geofencing and time-tracking technology to generate accurate, real-time records of its clinicians’ activities.
Embracing Timeero: Improving Operations While Preserving Privacy
But the transition wasn’t without its challenges. Apprehensive clinicians needed some convincing at first. They were concerned about managing the new technology, that they might be tracked 24/7, or that the app would access their iPad cameras.
“A whole bunch of red flags went up,” Pickering remembers, reflecting on the clinicians’ worries about a potential loss of privacy.
Despite early reservations, Timeero proved to be the ideal solution. Pickering explained that the company wasn’t interested in tracking therapists in their off hours.
“We don’t track where they are 24/7, but we like to be able to hold them accountable and see where they are at what location at a specific time. Timeero definitely helped us do that.”
The system was designed to respect clinicians’ privacy. Tracking occurred during clocked-in hours, ensuring their off-hours remained private.
The Power of Change with Timeero
Timeero’s GPS tracking software allows companies to monitor worker locations, mileage, hours, and schedules, easing payroll reporting and improving accuracy and efficiency.
From management’s perspective, Timeero helps the company reduce faulty session and travel reports and allows it to see clinician locations at all times, whether near the home office in Green Bay or two hours away in Milwaukee.
Not only do clinicians easily track their session and travel times, but the app catches errors, allowing the professionals to go back and edit their data if they forget to check out when leaving a client. It also gives check-in and check-out reminders.
“We’re happy with implementing Timeero in our company’s corporate culture,” Pickering said. “Now that we’ve been using it for almost two years, it has become routine.”
Better Data, More Efficiency, Lower Costs
Adopting Timeero has empowered Power for Change to manage billing based on more accurate data, resulting in better data, more efficiency, and lower costs.
Rather than trying to recall how long it took to travel to a session, how much time they spent with a client, or doing the math necessary to generate a bill, therapists can easily view the information on the app.
“Our clinicians just clock in, and they’re done. They punch in and out for sessions and don’t have to worry about what happens throughout the week. And they do their billing really quickly. So, it has basically eliminated a lot of headaches from billing and also from the clinician end.”
Clinicians found the app’s time-entry layout “fantastic,” keeping vital information neat and organized.
“Having the employee GPS tracker with geofence technology is an awesome feature,” Pickering highlighted, appreciating the capability to set up perimeters around client locations and accurately monitor clinician check-ins and check-outs.
Two years into its integration, Timeero has become vital to Power for Change’s mission, enabling more effective service delivery and significantly reducing costs.
“It just gives us greater peace of mind,” Pickering said. “Also, for future ventures, if we want to expand north or somewhere else, having Timeero definitely allows us more flexibility in locating our clinicians and their whereabouts.”
Exceptional Customer Support: A Pillar of Succes
Timeero’s ease of use and respect for privacy have been pivotal in its success. Still, Power for Change’s experience with Timeero extends beyond the software itself, touching on the responsive and helpful nature of the customer support team.
In addition to offering strong initial support, Timeero’s team communicates when new updates or features are available. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the app’s announcement field allowed Power for Change to alert clinicians to the opportunity to register for vaccinations.
“Our experience buying Timeero was exceptional, and Timeero has been nothing but an exceptional program to use. Barima and his team are 100 percent approachable to any issues that our billing team or clinicians may have or may arise. We really appreciate that,” Pickering said, highlighting the vital role of customer support in their positive experience with Timeero.
This level of support helped Power for Change maximize Timeero’s benefits. Two years into its integration, Timeero has become vital to Power for Change’s mission, enabling more effective service delivery and significantly reducing costs.
“We are very, very happy with Timeero. Timeero is a top-notch program,” concludes Pickering, affirming Timeero’s value in supporting Power for Change’s mission to foster positive change in the lives of their clients.
