Approval Mechanism

What is an Approval Mechanism?

An approval mechanism allows you to set up high-level approvals for your Lesson Notes. Think of it as a second set of eyes checking a note before it is considered "done". What this means is once a Lesson Note has been submitted it will be in a Pending state until an authorized approver goes into the Lesson Note dashboard to Approve it. This allows, for example, a BCBA to sign off on an RBT Lesson Note before an appointment is considered fully rendered/complete. 

Session notes are not required to bill out insurance claims; however, in the case of a audit, a payer might request session notes for specific clients or time periods.  If the notes do not meet payer requirements, payments might be recouped or taken back.

Welina Lesson Notes are highly customizable and allow you to choose whether Approval Mechanisms are required for each individual Lesson Note Template. This allows increased flexibility for a variety of provider needs from training screenings to full on practice procedures. 

If you do not require "approval" of a Lesson Note, choose "none" from the drop-down menu when building your templates.

Choose the Approval Mechanism Type

There are three different options you can choose from when building out a lesson note. Let's define each type and provide a recommendation of when you might want to use it. 

Reporting Manager Approval

On each staff profile, you can assign a reporting manager.  Then, when the Reporting Manager is selected for the approval mechanism, the assigned direct and indirect reporting managers will be responsible for approving the staff member's Lesson Note. 

Three Tier Support model (example):

1. RBT = Reports to BCBA

2. BCBA = Reports to Clinical Direct

3. Clinical = Does not report to anyone. 

When the RBT submits their Lesson Note using this Approval Mechanism both the BCBA and the Clinical Director will have the option to Approve, Unapprove, Edit or Reject the Lesson Note. 

Reporting Manager Approval is recommended organizations that have tiered supervision models allowing for coverage of note approvals when Management-Level staff are out on vacation and allows for managerial level oversight. 

Admin Approval

When creating user roles, any user role listed as Admin Type will be able to approve Lesson Notes using the Admin Approval Mechanism. 

Admin Approval is recommended for organizations that want only an Admin level role to review and approve Lesson Notes. Example admin roles might be Biller, Operations Manager, Compliance Officer. 

Custom Approval

This option allows for a custom selection of who can approve the note. This means that you can choose Admin roles and Staff roles of any kind to be set up with authority to approve a Lesson Note.  It will not follow the reporting manager structure on the staff profile. 

Custom Approval is recommended for organizations that would like to train RBT-level staff who are working towards their BCBA to give them the experiences of reviewing some Lesson Notes for compliance and training purposes.

Lesson Builder and Lesson Notes

Another increased level of customization with Lesson Notes is the ability to also assign Lesson Note Templates to specific lessons. Learn more about creating lessons in the Lesson Builder.

One creative way to use approval mechanisms can be to create lessons specifically designed for new RBTs. For example, you might create a lesson called "RBT in Training." Assign this lesson to a new staff member so they can only access the "RBT in Training" lesson within the client’s profile. This lesson would include a lesson note template with an approval mechanism enabled. Meanwhile, more experienced RBTs can be assigned lessons that use a note template without an approval process.

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