What's an off-platform visit?
Off-platform visits refer to visits
performed by another doula AND
have been billed for by that doula off of the Loula platform.
For example, you may have a client who's coming to you for postpartum care only. You should ask the client:
Have you worked with any other doulas for this pregnancy?
If so, did those doulas bill your insurance for those visits?
If the answer to both of the questions above are YES, you need to log off-platform visits for this client.
⚠️ Logging off-platform visits is critical to maintaining accurate visit counts. If these off-platform visits are not logged, you may be allowed to submit visits that will be denied by health plans due to "frequency limitations." Loula reserves the right to withhold payment if this occurs.
If the client worked with a doula who did not bill their insurance, you do not need to log those off-platform visits.
If the client has worked with another Loula doula, you also do not need to log those off-platform visits. Instead, you should make sure to add that client as a Shared Client -- that way you and the other Loula doula will have visibility as to the visits that have been formed for the client.
What you need to collect
You should collect the following information from the client:
For each visit billed by another doula off-platform, you need to collect the
Visit Date
Visit Type (i.e. Initial Visit; Perinatal Visit, Prenatal; Labor & Delivery, Vaginal Delivery; etc.)
Name of doula who performed the service (optional)
How to log an off-platform visit
Go to the Client Profile of the client you want to log off-platform visits for
Find the [...] button next to the Submit visit button on the upper-right corner of Client Profile
In the dropdown menu that opens up, select Off-platform visits
In the drawer that opens up, select +Log visit
In the modal that opens
Select the Visit Type
Enter the Visit Date
(optional) Enter the Doula Name of the doula who performed the visit
Once you've filled out the fields, click Log visit.
The modal will close and the table in the drawer will be updated with the information you just inputted.
You may Edit or Delete your logged off-platform visits by selecting the Edit and Delete buttons in each off-platform visit row.
Important notes:
A visit type might be disabled if this client has already maxed out of their visit count for that visit
Visit dates must follow insurance guidelines. For example, you may only log one visit a day other than Labor & Delivery visits types, for which you can log one other visit on that day. If the visit date does not follow insurance guidelines, you will receive an error that tells you why that visit date is not allowed.
How do off-platform visits affect my client's visit count?
In general, off-platform visits are only displayed within the client's Off-platform Visit drawer.
They will not be displayed in:
The Visits table of the Client Profile
The Visits table in the Visits page
They will also not be factored into the visit count in the Visit Overview section of a Client Profile.
‼️ However, they will be factored into the number of visits remaining that is displayed for each visit type.
For example, if you've logged an off-platform visit that was an Initial, 90-minute, Prenatal visit:
The visit count will still remain 0, because that number only reflects the visits submitted on Loula.
You will see that you have 0 remaining next to the visit count of the Initial, 90-min visit type.
You will not be able to submit any additional Initial, 90-min visits because each client is only allotted one of those visit types.
For Shared Clients, your off-platform visits will show up for the other doulas that are sharing that client and affect their visit count accordingly.