Improved IEP compliance, higher Medicaid returns: Why Sheldon ISD recommends Embrace®

The previous vendor of Sheldon ISD created many challenges for the team due to poor quality of support, service inconsistency, and challenging access.

“They would do frequent updates, and then those updates would actually break something else. And so, when things were going well with a certain section of the application, when they did an update, they didn't troubleshoot to make sure it wouldn't break something,” says Brooke.

Exposure to multiple technical bugs created the need to constantly address Support. However, issue resolution and responsiveness became problems in their own right.

“Customer service wasn't consistent for us, and so it was really hard to even get anybody on the phone. You could put in a support ticket, but it would take up to two weeks before they responded. It was very hard to stay solution-focused. A lot of times when I did get someone live, it was a lot of negativity and frustration.”

Accessing the system was problematic, too.

“A lot of times, the previous system would not let you work on a live website, meaning, like, you could get on the website, but you had to work in incognito. And I thought that was really strange, that you would have to trick the system to get in. And every time you would get on with someone, they'd go, ‘Okay, we're gonna trick the system.’ And you're like, ‘But you shouldn't need to trick the system to make it work.’”

The Sheldon ISD team wanted to reduce time spent submitting multiple support tickets and waiting for troubleshooting, and finally have a working system that would offer compliance safeguards.

“We were always held hostage with, you know, I'd have 20 support tickets out. And then by the time you got to someone live, it was like, ‘I don't remember the first one.’ And they're like, ‘Oh yeah, that one's been corrected. We figured out a way to troubleshoot,” recalls Brooke.

Training all staff on the new software quickly and with minimal interruptions to their workflow was another big goal for the leadership team. Having a vast number of teachers to train was a test of whether or not Embrace® could handle it.

“That was a huge thing for me, because it's very hard to pull our special ed teachers for multiple hours,” explains Brooke. “[With Embrace®] we were able to train our teachers where they felt comfortable enough to implement, and also, you know, document services. So, that has been a great transition.”

Judgement-free Customer Support, easy transition
Embarking on a journey of transitioning to a new software, both leadership and staff were anxious, especially after not having the best experiences talking to support in the past. Embrace® has completely changed that impression. 

“Everybody in Embrace®, they get on, and they're just, like, judge-free zone. ‘Okay, this is what happened. I understand now, Brooke. Okay, next time you do this instead.’ And I feel like when I got off the call, I had my solution, but I didn't feel like they were going, ‘Hmm, Sheldon doesn't know what they're doing.’ I felt like they fully empowered us, embraced us, and supported us, so we can be successful.”

The encouraging and human element of support was crucial to an easier adoption by staff.

“It has been a great transition, because, it's really hard to transition to a new program, just because of the whole moving of all your records, making sure all those get caught and carried over, and then just learning the new system is a big undertaking in itself, and so we had a great experience, and I am happy to say that we are truly satisfied with Embrace®.”

Real-time, efficient collaboration
Embrace® has allowed staff to collaborate simultaneously with colleagues within the same IEP meetings. Fields get automatically locked when someone begins working on them, preventing any accidental overriding.

“When it comes to compliance, we're able to be in one system together,” explains Brooke. “But if my colleague gets in and is working on the same kid, he or she can't override the work that I'm doing. So, when they log in, the system automatically tells the person, ‘Hey, Brooke Douget is in the system,’ you know, ‘let her finish, and then you can get in and do it.’”

Consistent document formatting
Even such a small detail as consistent formatting across all documents has become a major improvement in how Sheldon ISD presents and organizes its documentation.“It drives me absolutely insane when I get a document, and there's all these different fonts and sizes,” says Brooke. “[But in Embrace®] everything is cohesive, and it looks much more professional, and we're all on the same page.”

Built-in accommodations and goal writing tools
Sheldon ISD received access to multiple compliance features that guide staff in filling out documents in a compliant way. 

“I do like the feature in Embrace® where if you are a brand new special education teacher, and you're writing goals for the first time, it actually has an accommodation built within where it'll teach you how to write a measurable goal that is compliant. It breaks it down for you: you do your time frame, your criterion, your behavior, and then just how you're going to measure that student's progress, and it's built in,” explains Brooke.

“But Embrace® doesn't force you if you are a veteran teacher. You still have the option to write it naturally, like a Word document.” 

Ability to upload charts/graphs
“I do like the fact that with Embrace®, you can have a library of different charts and graphs that you may use for the evaluation side. So, for example, if you're using the Woodcock-Johnson® cognitive report, you can go ahead and, on the back end, upload a chart for your evaluators to use, so then you have some consistency when presenting the outcome of the Woodcock-Johnson®,” says Brooke.

“It really has given us the ability to place some consistency within our evaluation team, where everything looks the same.”

No double documenting with Medicaid billing add-on
After adding the Medicaid billing program to their Embrace® suite, Sheldon ISD improved their Medicaid billing efficiency and reimbursement, too.

“[Before], a lot of times our staff would have to double document, put it in the system for special ed progress reporting time, but then also have to log into a Medicaid billing program to then document the same things again in a different program.”

Double documenting was taking up staff’s time and was turning into a serious productivity issue.

“That was another component that brought Embrace® to that tipping point of they're a strong contender for us to really consider selecting as our system, because Embrace® was our top one that had that component built in. This multi-component presence of the Medicaid billing piece was one of the deciding factors to go ahead with Embrace®,” says Brooke.

The district was able to increase reimbursement after just one year of utilizing the software.

“Our CFO was very impressed with the return. He was not expecting the amount that we did get, and it was a positive surprise. It did help us with our budgeting,” adds Brooke.

“Embrace® is much more cost-effective. So we still came out on top, even with the change, moving to Embrace®, we still got an increase in return when it came to Medicaid.”