Training and Support – Residential Pricing

In this session, I’m going to be showing you a hands-on demonstration of the BAT tool using a fictional scenario. The BAT tool is intended to support you to capture the information needed to price residential care packages appropriately.  
 
The BAT file that I will use has some of the information related to a scenario already in it, but we are going to explore the layout of the tool whilst I add in additional information. I’ll show you useful features in the BAT tool such as inbuilt Help information. I’ll then conclude the session by showing you how to also make use of the Global Pricing Tool to determine a band allocation, and how the information for the disabled person is stored in Socrates. 

Here's what this session is going to cover: 

• How to access the Facilities List, as well as the BAT tool, ready to enter information 

• More information on the Purpose, Plan View, and List View tabs in the BAT, explaining their differences, their intended use and when best to use each tab. 

• Entering information via the Plan View and how that information is saved into the List View 

• Sharing information that you enter in the Plan View text boxes with a disabled person 

• Using the List View to enter, edit and review information 

• Sharing information from the List View with a disabled person 

• Taking information in BAT and using it in the GPT tool 

• And explaining the Data String for Socrates and how you add it into Socrates 

At the end of this session, you will be able to understand: 

• The reasons for using the BAT tool and GPT. 

• How to access the BAT tool, ready to enter information 

• The Purpose, Plan View, and List View tabs and when best to use each tab. 

• The ways in which you can enter information into and share information in the BAT 

• What information in the BAT needs to be transposed into the GPT tool and Socrates 

Before we look at the BAT tool, let’s discuss just why the tool has been created and how it supports conversations with the disabled person and their whanau. 

Through the service specification, disabled people are provided with a number of choices about how a residential care arrangement will work for them. The use of the BAT tool is intended to assist you to explore those choices together. 

Not all of these choices will play a direct role in pricing the service – but it is important that these choices are made clearly before moving to pricing, so that there are shared expectations of what will be delivered, and how. 

Planning supported by using the BAT tool, is intended to make clear up front what the disabled person and their family are looking for in a residential care arrangement, and what the provider is committing to support through entering into or renewing an arrangement. 

It is also intended to support you to capture the information needed to price residential care packages appropriately. 

The Band Allocation Tool supports you to capture and summarise service needs, before that information is entered into GPT to generate a daily rate. 

The Band Allocation Tool of itself does not include price information, instead it captures information on: 

• The location, size, and support arrangements of the house a person may live in 

• The support requirements of the person in question, across: 

• the busy times of the day (morning and evening) 

• through the middle of the day, when they may be out and about, and 

• overnight. 

Let’s start getting ready for the conversation with the disabled person. I have already had discussions with Peter (who I will mention more about in a moment) and his Aunty Sue, and they have indicated a place they have in mind in Auckland and they have been in contact with the provider concerning that facility. 
 
I’m going to show you where to find the Facilities List in Socrates, as it will help me confirm some of the data that I need to enter into the BAT. 

The point that you decide to look at this list will vary in every situation. It might be something that you do much later on in the process rather than at the beginning, but because Peter and Aunty Sue have a specific place in mind, I just want to carry out a check of the details.  

The Facilities List is found on the Reporting Server, in a folder called Residential Pricing Model. It’s an Excel spreadsheet that I am going to show you now. I just want to check in this spreadsheet how many bedrooms are in the house that we have discussed and can confirm that it’s 5. 

You should ALWAYS open the Facilities List from Socrates, every time you need to view it. Please do NOT save a copy on your computer. This ensures that if there are any changes made to it, you are always accessing the most recent version. 

Next, I’m going to you how to access the BAT tool, ready to add information into it. 

When you login to Socrates and come to the home page, click on CLIENTS. 

This then loads the Client Search area, where you can search for the client. 

On the Maintain Client screen, click on Reports and Letters in the left-hand sidebar. 

Next, click the drop-down menu to select a Letter type. 

Then you would select Residential BAT from the drop-down menu. 

You might have noticed that the option below this is to generate (or create) a Residential GPT file. I won’t go through the process later because the process for generating a BAT file and creating a GPT file is almost identical. 

Now that I have selected Residential BAT, I need to click on Generate Letter. 

This creates a copy of the BAT stored in the Client Letters section, for that client. 

You should ALWAYS create a new copy of the BAT from Socrates, every time you need to create one. Please do NOT duplicate an existing copy that you might have on your computer. This ensures that if there are any changes made to the BAT tool or the GPT, you are always using the most recent version, and it also makes sure that you are not accidentally transferring private information into someone else’s file. 

For the rest of this session, I am going to be using a BAT file that already has some information contained in it related to the fictional scenario I am going to work through. I want you to imagine that I am in the middle of a conversation with Peter Doe, a 24-year-old disabled person, who lives in Auckland. Peter sadly lost both of his parents when he was young, and his Aunty Sue has always played a significant role in his life and is always there for Peter. She is part of the conversation also. 

I want to stress that scenario concerns a fictional person. It is not based on and does not intentionally reflect any known person. The scenario has been created as a way of demonstrating the BAT tool with some information already populated in it.  

Planning is intended to make clear up front what the disabled person and their family are looking for in a residential care arrangement, and what the provider is committing to support through entering or renewing an arrangement. 

If the file is giving you any security or macro warnings, it is important to approve the warnings at this point. 

Let’s look at the three different tabs again - the Purpose, Plan View, and List View. 

Purpose is like an ‘About’ page – It contains a reminder that you need be careful about storing and/or sharing this file because it will contain personally identifiable information. You’re unlikely to need to make use of the Purpose tab beyond taking a quick look at it when you open the file for the first time. 

List View and Plan View are one of two different ways to engage with the BAT tool during your conversation with the disabled person. 
 
Plan View is like a ‘mind map’, and contains boxes that allow you to capture points that are important to the disabled person through the course of the conversation, plan for support requirements in order to achieve the goal of “a good quality of life in a place that feels like home”. 

You can see that the layout of the BAT tool in Plan View reflects the domains I introduced in a previous session, with home being at the centre of the disabled person’s life. 
 
I want to draw your attention to a few things here: 

• First, the language used in the BAT tool. You’ll notice that buttons and headings say things like “My Details,” “I’d like to summarise my support requirements” and “Being responsible for my home”. This language style is intentional and is designed to emphasise that planning is focussed on the disabled person and their needs. 

• Next, I want to point out that if you hover your mouse over each of the domain headings, you’ll see a little pop-up message, giving you guidance about each of the domains and the conversations that you should have with the disabled person and their whanau related to them. 

• Next, each domain that you see here has a text box below it, that allows you to record additional information, in order to build up a picture of the support requirements for the disabled person. You can see that I have already added some notes related to Peter in this BAT. 

• Finally, when you click on buttons in this view (such as My Details) it gives you access to pop-up windows that provide prompts to enter information relevant to the disabled person and the conversation that you are having. 

If I click (for example) on Add details of proposed house in Plan View, I can add in information concerning where the house being considered is, and the number of bedrooms it contains. When I click Okay, this information is sent to the List View. I’ll demonstrate that shortly. 

List View has all of the question fields that are included in Plan View, laid out in a list and provides a summary on the resulting information that will be used to price the service. 

In practice, you might mix and match between using the two views in different circumstances. Which view you use in the Band Allocation Tool will depend on: 

• How the disabled person and their family prefers to be engaged (e.g. do they want to plan collaboratively through a process, or is their preference that ‘the paperwork’ be sorted out in the background) 

• What is right for the present situation - e.g. longer-term planning for a residential care arrangement may be best done in Plan View. Returning to the file, and urgent or short-term packages may most efficiently be done in List View. 

• List View is useful for review, and faster inputs or adjustments. 

• List View also allows for a reviewer within the NASC to make comments or notes based on what has been entered. 

I’m going to return to the Plan View and we can start taking a closer look at this view and how you interact with it. 

I’ll start by adding in some of the information related to the scenario that I have on hand, starting with the central area of Plan View - Being at home and home life. Usually this is the area of Plan View that you would start with.  

This box is an opportunity to capture things that are important to the disabled person about home life. Especially for those who are entering residential care for the first time, there can be some things for which assurance is sought. These can be ‘little’ things that make up what is familiar about home – habits and practices that help someone feel settled and comfortable – or they can be bigger things about activities or roles that are important to someone’s identity or connection with family and culture. 

I’m going to enter some information now by clicking on My Details, entering details such as name, NHI etc, and then clicking Okay. 
 
I’m also going to enter information about the proposed house, by clicking Add details of proposed house. Before I enter the information however, I’m going to click on the Help button in this pop-up window. 
 
This gives me access to what is sometimes called context-sensitive help. Another way to put it, is that the help information that you see when you click on these buttons is always related to the area that you are working in. In this example, you can see some useful information related to why recording the size of the house is important, as well as giving some examples of situations you may come across and what you need to consider when answering the questions. 

I’m going to indicate that the proposed house is in Auckland and that there are 5 bedrooms in the house they are considering. 

You might have noticed that the information I just entered has not appeared on the Plan View. However, this information has been sent to the List View. Think of the List View, not only as a different view, but the place you can go to, to see the output of the information that you entered via the Plan View buttons. 
 
However, as you see, you can also add more information into Plan View beyond simply using the buttons. If I want to add additional comments in the “Being at home” area or under any of the domains, I can double-click into the text box. 
 

IMPORTANT – If you want to go down a line in this text box, make sure you hold down the ‘alt’ key on your keyboard before you press the Enter key. 
 
This box is an opportunity to capture things that are important to the disabled person about home life. What practices are part of making home feel like home? Are there particular cultural or religious practices that are part of what home looks like for them? Are particular celebrations important to them? Are there particular activities or supports that they want assurance will occur or be in place? 

It’s important to note that the information that you type into these text boxes is not transferred to the List View. 

Next, I’m going to go to the Having my space and making a space mine domain and click on I’d like to summarise my support requirements. 

Part of home is having ones’ own space, controlling what happens in that space, and taking responsibility for it. In this section, you might discuss what’s involved with: 

• Having objects and other things that represent who they are in their personal space. 

• Making choices about who does and does not enter personal spaces, when and on what basis, and 

• Keeping the personal space clean and tidy, to a standard that might be expected of any tenant or housemate. 

Peter and his aunt have indicated that it takes about an hour of Peter’s week to keep his space tidy, so I’m going to select that. And that he requires someone supporting me to understand or complete a few tasks, so I am going to select that from the drop-down options also. 

Questions about tasks, activities, or responsibilities generally involve two questions: 

• Time taken – the first question for most indicators is how much time an activity might take a disabled person. 

• Exclusivity – the second question in most indicators is what kind of support might be required, ranging from ‘someone being available just in case’ through to ‘2 people supporting me with all tasks’. This supports pricing by determining the potential (or not) for some of the support to be shared. 
   
  These two things taken together, supports the estimation of an appropriate amount to pay for the work that is done exclusively with the person, and work that is shareable with other people. 

This pop-up window also introduces a new aspect of Plan View – The It’s important that you know that button. 
 
The focus of the BAT is on understanding and planning for someone’s aspirations for a good quality of life in residential care. Alongside the sliding scales for support, there are a number of ‘yes/no’ indicators included, to identify the presence of particular kinds of requirements or risks. 
 
This reflects that, as well as general levels of support required, there can be specific risk or requirements that disabled people or their families can be anxious for assurance, that the system is taking into account. 
 
The It’s important that you know indicators provide space to capture the presence of some common risks and requirements that influence what is required to deliver support safely and effectively. 

In this domain, the It’s important that you know that indicator relates to whether the person requires support in repositioning themselves, making transfers, managing their balance to avoid falls, and/or access all parts of their home. 
 
If this is the case with this person, just tick the box and click Okay, but for Peter, this is not the case, so I am going to leave that unticked.  

I want you to notice what happens when I click Okay to close these pop-up windows. 

For each of the domains that surround Home at the heart of this BAT, you will get feedback confirming that the information has been transferred to the List View. Let’s take a quick look to confirm that what we just entered is now in List View. 

I’m going to go to the Feeling safe and being safe, day-to-day domain. 

Home should be somewhere that we feel safe and are safe. Effective and proportionate risk management is part of delivering quality care. This domain contributes to giving effect to - “People will live in an environment that safeguards them from abuse and neglect and ensures their personal security and safety needs are met.” 

You might discuss what’s involved with: 

• The things that need to be in place for me to manage ordinary hazards in the home 

• Managing contact with strangers safely 

• Expressing myself in a way that is safe for me and for others, and 

• Managing emergency situations 

Peter has significant vision impairment, so the first thing I am going to do is enter some additional information that we have discussed into the text box for this domain. 

I’m now going to complete the rest of this domain, using the buttons available to me. 

This domain has four It’s important that you know indicators attached to it. Answers in other domains may also be relevant, however. 

In Peter’s case, only one of the indicators applies to him, so I am going to leave all of them unticked except I like to explore my environment, and may wander beyond where you expect me, and then click Okay twice and OK, and finish this domain.  

As mentioned before, a lot of other information related to the scenario has been entered into this BAT file already. 

We’re going to look at List View in a moment, but to finish our exploration of Plan View, I’m going to show you how you can share a copy of the information that you have entered into the text boxes with the disabled person if they request it. 

The plan contained in the BAT is the disabled person’s own information – it can be requested by them, and shared by them, with whomever they choose. 
 
Much of the information contained in the BAT would form a useful basis for discussing with a provider what would be involved in supporting a disabled person. It may also support ongoing review with a provider of how different elements of a service are performing for the disabled person. 
 
Where part or all the BAT has been shared with a provider, and they have made available additional information, NASC must form a view of whether or how it is reasonably taken into account. Nevertheless, as a pricing tool, the BAT needs to reflect the NASC’s independent view of what is required to support the disabled person. 

The Plan View has been set up to share an A3 copy of the view, using the Print option on your computer. When you select Print, you can choose to print the view out to a printer or save it as a PDF and share the resulting PDF file. 
 
This print-out will only contain information you have entered into the text boxes, as all other information is now stored in List View. 
 
Once you share the print out, if you saved it as a PDF file, you should delete it from your computer, for privacy reasons. 

As mentioned, List View is a useful view for review and faster inputs or adjustments. 

If you are reviewing a previous BAT file, you will need to look at the List View for any information that has been entered previously via buttons in Plan View. This is because if you go to the Plan View, it will show you information entered into text boxes, but it will NOT show you information you entered previously via the buttons. 

When you arrive at the List View, the first area you see is the Summary area, containing information about the resulting support levels, and information that will need to be put into the GPT to create a residential price in the Inputs for GPT section. 

Running down the right-hand side of the List View, are note fields. These are areas where you could write additional notes, such as justifications for entries in the area concerned. These boxes are also useful for the person conducting a review of the BAT, that we discussed in the previous session, and we will come back to later. 

Following on from the Summary section (which we will look at again) is the It’s Important That You Know section that brings we have already discussed in Plan View together. Viewing this section in List View is a useful way to check which of these you entered information into across the Plan View. Alternatively, you can come directly to this section, review and adjust each of the values here instead of using the buttons. 

I’ve just realised that I made an error with the value for I like to explore my environment, and may wander beyond where you expect me when I was working in Plan View, so I am going to adjust that to No. 

The next section in List View relates to Specific Support Requirements. This section sets out the specific support needs captured in the plan and factored into the price. 
 
I realise that I didn’t complete the Plan View version of Preparing myself for my day, my way, but my discussions with Peter and his aunt, mean I’m going to do that here in List View, so I don’t need to jump back. 

The next section in List View is Data string for Socrates. We’re going to look at how you use this information with Socrates later, but this section of the List View is something that you should not try and adjust. The area is set to be non-editable and the code that is within it is for Socrates specifically. There’s no need to try and interpret this code and there is no real reason to share this section of the List View with the disabled person. More on this later. 

1. SAY: Let’s imagine that I have now done a review of all the information here in List View, that I either entered in via Plan View or here in this view. Remember, with the exception of the text box entries in Plan View, all other values you enter, came through to this view. 

1. Let’s look at how you how you can share a copy of the information above the code for Socrates, that you have entered into the List View, if the disabled person requests it. 

1. SAY: You can share an A3 copy of the List View, using the Print option on your computer. When you select Print, you can choose to print the view out or save it as a PDF and share the resulting PDF file. 
    
   Here’s how to print List View: 

• Click (and hold the mouse button down) below the bottom-right Notes field and drag all the way up to the top-left of the screen. The area will indicate it’s selected by going slightly dark. 

• Go to the Page Layout tab and select Print Area – Set Print Area 

• Change the Width setting to 1 page. 

• Change the Height setting to Automatic. 

• Press CTRL-P on your keyboard. 

• You can then either print to PDF or to a printer. 

1. SAY: You should keep the BAT tool open at this point, as you are going to transpose some of the information from it into the GPT tool, as well as make use of that data string in Socrates. 

We’re now going to start using different tools in this final section of the demonstration, specifically the GPT tool and Socrates. This is because information from the BAT needs to be added into the GPT, then information from the BAT and GPT needs to go into Socrates. 
 
It might sound or seem a little complex at first, but it’s actually a very simple series of steps that will take you around 5 minutes to do when you become familiar with the process. You just need to make sure that any information you take from one tool to another, is entered accurately in the new system. 

All individual funding allocations must first be discussed and agreed with the Provider to ensure the Provider has the capability to support the person in a Community Group Home service. 

Once the allocation is agreed, the NASC organisation or EGL site must enter a service allocation under Service Coordination in Socrates, ensuring that:  

• the service ID corresponds to the person's region, and GPT output,  

• the correct provider region is selected, 

• the BAT rationale is copied and pasted. 

In client documents the following are saved: 

• the completed BAT and GPT files, 

• the rationale for the allocated funding rate, including peer review, Quality Assurance and Review Panel outcomes. 

Let me talk you through the steps, to give you an overview of the process, and then I will go back and show you some of the steps that happen in Socrates. 

Imagine you have a completed the BAT. The first thing you need to do is use information from the BAT to enter it into the GPT to get a rate to offer the provider. 

You need to go into Socrates, generate a copy of the GPT in the same way you created a BAT file. 

In the BAT, locate the Inputs for GPT data in the List View and copy the information from it into the GPT. This will generate the rate that should be reviewed by a peer. It may also require endorsement from the DSS Review Panel before it is offered to the provider for the service.  

You then go into Socrates and allocate the service, choosing the appropriate Service ID based on the band allocation information. 

You can then safely close the GPT that you had opened at this point. 

You need to get the Data string for Socrates from the BAT (that’s the complex, non-editable data at the bottom of the List View), copy it and paste it into BAT Rationale field in Socrates. 

Next, close the BAT file and it will be saved into the Client’s profile in Socrates. 

Later, you will need to return to Socrates, to update the disabled person’s address when the Service Provider has confirmed the Service Request. This is important to maintain, as it will be used for new reporting. 
 
If you need to come back to the completed BAT at any point, you can always open it from the disabled person’s profile in Socrates. 
 
All these steps are quite easy to do, so I am going to show you the process again in more detail. 

I can’t demo this process for you in Socrates, as we shouldn’t enter any training information or upload material into the live Socrates website, so I’m going to show you the process with a copy of the GPT and in screenshots. 

You need to go into Socrates and generate a GPT file in the same way as you created a BAT file. Make sure you always go back to Socrates when you need to use the GPT rather than using a copy you may have downloaded previously. 
 
But again, because I don’t want to interact with the live Socrates site, I am going to use a copy of the GPT momentarily. 

Here’s just a brief reminder of the Inputs for GPT data in the List View of the BAT that I’m about to use. This will generate the rate that should be offered to the provider for the service. 

For Peter: 

• I need to enter his First Name (Peter) and Last Name (Doe) 

• I select Auckland as the Town/City 

• For Care Hours, I select a ratio of 1:4 for the Core Shift and 1:5 for Assistance Shift 

• And finally, I set the No. of Bedrooms to 5 

• This indicates that the banded rate to offer the provider is Northern Band 1  

Once you know which band they are on and the provider, you can then allocate the service in Socrates. 

Click Add New DSS Service. 

Select the correct Provider and region, and Service ID. 

Let’s take a closer look at the Service ID for a moment. 
 
There are 56 potential Service IDs, so it is important to select the correct one aligned with the BAT Output and Client. You can see that the Service ID includes information on the Group Home, region, disability, and the allocated band. 

 “GH” refers to Group Home. “N” refers to the region (Northern, Midlands, Central, Southern). “P” or “I” refers to the disability, and then “1” relates to the band. 
 
Information about the Service ID is included in the BAT User Guide and as a separate Cheat Sheet document. 

Then you can copy the Data Inputs for Socrates script from the BAT, into the BAT Rationale field. 

If you select an Exceptional Rate Service ID, additional fields will appear to be completed. Note that you must have received endorsement for the exceptional rate from the DSS Review Panel before you do this. 

You can then safely close the copy of the GPT that you had opened, and it will be saved into Socrates. 

You should ALWAYS open the GPT from Socrates, every time you need to use it. Please do NOT save a copy to your computer. This ensures that if there are any changes made to the GPT, you are always using the most recent version. 

We’ve reached the end of this session. 
 
It was designed to give you a hands-on demonstration of the BAT tool using a scenario that had been created. There is a copy of the file that I used in this session available in Socrates if you’d like to look at it. I’ll give you more information on where to find the file, the BAT and GPT in our next session. 
 
We explored the layout of the BAT tool, looking at the Purpose tab, Plan View and List View. We then took some of the information from the BAT into GPT and into Socrates. 

You should now be able to understand: 

• The reasons for using the BAT tool and GPT. 

• How to access the BAT tool, ready to enter information 

• The Purpose, Plan View, and List View tabs and when best to use each tab. 

• The ways in which you can enter information into and share information in the BAT 

• information in the BAT needs to be transposed into the GPT tool and Socrates 

In the final session:  

• I’ll do a quick recap of the funding allocation process. 

• I’ll explain the process for dealing with Exceptional Rates 

• I’ll explain the training and support material that’s available to you. 

• I’ll talk about what’s next for you. 

• I’ll then wrap-up the training and try to answer any additional questions that you have