Your Nursebuddy subscription - care hours and packages
When you sign-up for Nursebuddy, the subscription you choose is linked to a specific number of care hours (or visits). This means we define your Nursebuddy subscription by the amount of care you expect to deliver in a given month.
What do we mean by care hours?
Care hours are defined as the number of billable hours shown within your Nursebuddy account. In other words, the total number of hours you bill to your clients each month, is the same number we use as care hours for your Nursebuddy subscription.
In some instances, Nursebuddy plans are based on visits rather than hours - particularly common if you’re a supported living provider. If this is the case, your Nursebuddy subscription will be based on the number of billed visits instead.
How do I find out what Nursebuddy package I’m on?
Go to Settings > My organisation > Subscription to see what plan you are on and the number of care hours (or visits) you have signed up to.
You will also be able to see your total number of billed hours so far this month, as well as in the last month.
Please note, we define “month” as a calendar month from your billing date. Your billing date will always be the same as the day of the month when you first signed-up to Nursebuddy.
How do I find out what my billable hours are?
Go to Settings > My organisation > Subscription and you will be able to see the number of billable hours for both the current and previous month (also called a billing cycle). The number of billable hours is shown under “subscription used”.
Different types of billable hours
It’s worth noting that you can choose for billable hours to be based on either planned time or reported time. (The system default for Nursebuddy is planned time).
What we mean by that:
Planned time - the number of billable hours of care you have scheduled
Reported time - the number of billable hours of care you have delivered
Planned time is calculated from the number of hours that you schedule for care delivery (regardless of how long a carer stayed at a visit, or whether a visit actually happened or not).
Reported time is calculated from when your carers check-in and out of visits. One danger of this is if a carer forgot to check-out of a visit, the clock would keep running and it would inflate your billable hours. So it’s worth checking on that if you choose this option.
In the case of double-handed visits, planned time will be the scheduled visit length multiplied by the number of carers scheduled. Reported time will be taken from the check-in and check-out logs of both (or all) carers.
Can I change how billable hours are calculated?
Yes, you can change how you calculate billable hours (or in other words, how you charge for care hours). But remember that this affects how you bill your clients, not just how you are charged for Nursebuddy.
To change it, go to Settings > General Settings > Reporting. Ticking the box will use reported time; leaving it unticked will use planned time.
Checking your billable hours
It’s easy to check planned, reported and billable time within the Nursebuddy visit report. Just go to Reports > Client Reports > Visit-Summary and choose the relevant time period. You can also check the number of visits here too.
It’s important to keep an eye on your billable hours and let us know if they are likely to go significantly above or below your current plan for a sustained period of time. It might be that a different plan is better suited to your business going forward.
We will also reach out and tell you if you have gone significantly above or below your current plan. If this happens a couple of times in a row, we may change your package to one that is more comparable to the number of billable hours we are seeing. But we will always tell you before we do this. If something significant has changed in your care business, it’s a great opportunity to talk to us about it so that we can work out how best to support you.