Service Approval

Background

Approval can serve as an intermediate step between a service being completed and being ready for billing, where a supervisor can review the content of the service and ensure it was completed correctly.  This is primarily set up through a supervisor/supervisee relationship at the staff level, but HealtheFirst also provides the ability to require approval for completed services with specific billing rates as well.  Between these two options, administrators can start to build out more complex approval workflows.

Setup & Configuration (Administrators)

1. Enable "Require Approval" for a new or existing billing rate.
   1. Go to [navigation menu] > Billing Rates.
   2. Click an existing billing rate, or "Add Billing Rate" to create a new one.
   3. Check "Require Approval."
   4. Save.
2. Confirm the correct setup of staff members and supervisors.
   1. Staff Member:  Users that are listed as "Supervised Staff" in someone else's profile.  (This will also appear on the user's profile under "Supervised By.")  Services completed by these users require approval.
   2. Supervisors:  Users that are setup to supervise other users and have access to their services.  If a staff member has people listed under "Supervised Users" in their profile, they are an "approver" for services completed by those users.  Note: This applies regardless of any other role permissions.
   3. To reiterate, the "Staff: Supervise All" permission does not affect the approval process.

Approval From the Staff Perspective

1. From the basic service provision perspective, nothing will change.  They will simply complete their service.  
2. When they save, the system will automatically flag the service as one the requires approval, and alert the staff member's supervisors.  (Note:  If a user with no supervisors completes a service, their service will be automatically approved.)
3. The service will be removed from the staff member's lists, and will be treated as complete from their perspective.
4. If a supervisor marks the service as "requires updates," the staff member will see a notification on their Dashboard page, as well as on the Services page.
5. They should click on the notification to be brought to a list of their services that require updates before they can be approved.
6. They can sort through the list of services, viewing various details.  When the staff member is ready to make the updates, they can click on the icon in the right-most column to view the service details.  
7. When viewing the service, they will also notice two additional fields, front and center.  These fields will show the approval status, and any approval related notes that their supervisor has added.
8. Once they have made the required updates to the service, they can replace the approval notes (if needed), and can update the approval status to "Ready for Approval," and save.  This will start the process over from Step 1, re-notifying supervisors that the service is ready for approval.

Approval From the Supervisor Perspective

1. Once a service is completed by a supervised staff member, their supervisor will receive a notification on their Dashboard and Services pages.
2. Clicking on the notification will bring them to a list of services requiring approval.  From here, they can sort through the services, view some details, and can either check multiple services (left-most column) and update their approval status in bulk, or they can click on the icon in the right-most column to view an individual service in full detail.
3. If the service is approved, it will go off to the Reimbursements page for billing.  If it requires updates, the supervisor can choose the "Not Approved" status and add notes to communicate what updates are required.  
4. At this point, the staff member will receive a notification to make the necessary updates, and the supervisor will see a low-key reminder on their Dashboard and Services pages, indicating that they are waiting on updates from staff members.
5. At this point, the approval loop starts all over again from the beginning.

Approval from the Billing Perspective

1. It's important to note that any service completed with a billing rate that does not require approval will behave as an approved services.
2. The Reimbursements page, by default, will only show approved services.  If the user would like to include "complete but not fully approved" services, there will be a new filter option included called "Include Services Pending Approval."  With this option enabled, users will see all completed services, regardless of approval status.