This week, we’re diving into Cost #2: Labor Costs.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that labor costs are high in this industry. After all, providing quality support to clients takes time.
But the time spent providing support is billable time.
The extra time spent working through paper records is just overhead. And there’s a lot more of it than necessary.
So, let’s dive in!
1. Administrative
Administrative staff spend a lot of time that isn’t directly helping your agency provide quality, person-centered support to clients.
Data Entry – Staff must spend many hours manually typing in the information on the paper records.
Filing – Hours are dedicated to organizing, labeling, and filing documents correctly.
Retrieval – It takes time to locate and retrieve specific records from filing cabinets. The more records, the longer this takes.
Copying, Faxing, Emailing – It takes time for staff to copy paper records. Some examples are sharing with healthcare providers, clients, or regulators.
2. Training
Initial Training – Significant time and resources are spent training new DSPs and staff members on how to maintain paper records.
Ongoing Training – Continuous education to ensure that staff members stay up-to-date with any changes in record-keeping practices, compliance requirements, and handling of sensitive information.
3. Supervision and Quality Control
Supervisory Oversight – Additional time is required for supervisors to review records for accuracy, completeness, and compliance with regulations.
Error Checking – Identifying and correcting errors, takes lots of time with manual paper processes.
4. Inefficiencies & Time Wasters
Manual Processes – Paper-based systems often require duplicating work, such as re-entering the same information multiple times for different purposes, leading to inefficiencies.
Time Lost to Searching – Significant time can be lost when staff have to search through multiple files or storage areas to find specific records, particularly if records are misplaced, not complete, or not well-organized.
5. Employee Turnover
Knowledge Transfer – When DSPs or staff members leave, new hires must be taught how records are kept. This if often cumbersome and time-consuming with paper systems.
Recruitment and Training – Since each agency’s forms may look different, additional time is often required to train a new hire how to properly fill out paper records.
6. Error Management
Correction and Rework – Errors in paper records may require extensive rework. This can mean looking for lost records, looking for incorrect information in a stack of records, or correcting the information and re-filing.
Communication – Time spent communicating about errors can be time consuming, especially since paper requires someone to review it.
Real Examples of How These Costs Add Up
1. Administrative Staff
Example: If a mid-sized provider employs 5 administrative staff members who each spend 2 hours daily on data entry, filing, and retrieval. At an average hourly wage of $17, this amounts to $170 per day, or $44,200 annually, just for basic administrative tasks.
2. Training
Example: If each new employee requires a week of training on paper record-keeping and a provider hires 10 new employees a year, then training costs approximately $6,800 annually if the trainer is paid $17 per hour.
3. Supervision and Quality Control
Example: If supervisors spend an average of 5 hours per week reviewing records, then 3 supervisors making $17 per hour equals about $255 weekly, or $13,260 annually.
4. Inefficiencies
Example: If a staff member loses an average of 30 minutes per day searching for records, then 10 staff members at $17 per hour costs $85 per day, or $22,100 annually.
5. Employee Turnover
Example: High turnover requires frequent knowledge transfer and training. If replacing an employee costs two weeks in lost productivity and training, and 5 employees are replaced annually, the cost is around $6,800 if the supervisor earns $17 per hour.
6. Error Management
Example: If correcting errors takes an average of 1 hour per day across
5 staff members. At $17 per hour, this is $85 per day, or $22,100 annually.
As you can see, the costs of using a paper-based system as the backbone of an agency can bring serious costs beyond the cost of just ink and paper.
What’s your overhead cost of using paper?
Stay tuned for next week’s deep dive into Service Costs of using paper!