Skilled Nursing Facilities (SNFs) in the United States play a pivotal role in the continuum of care, supporting patients transitioning from hospitals to long-term or post-acute settings.
Yet despite their clinical importance, these facilities are often overwhelmed by administrative bottlenecks tied to document workflows—fax machines still hum in back offices, scanned PDFs pile up in digital queues, and care teams spend hours each week manually handling paperwork instead of patients.
The result? Lost time, rising costs, and clinical burnout. According to the American Health Care Association (AHCA), nursing facilities reported vacancy rates of more than 20% for nurses and aides in 2022—a staffing crisis compounded by outdated, paper-based workflows. At the same time, the average SNF juggles dozens of payer requirements, physician referrals, and interfacility communications daily, most of which still depend on fax or scanned documentation.
In this environment, AI-po wered Intelligent Document Processing (IDP)—specifically next-generation, GenAI-enabled automation—offers a transformative path forward. By digitizing, classifying, and routing documents seamlessly into systems like MatrixCare, American HealthTech, or PointClickCare, IDP can help reduce manual workloads, lower costs, and restore focus on patient-centered care.
The good news? AI-powered Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) is no longer a “nice to have”—it’s a game-changer that digitizes referral intake, reduces leakage, and restores operational control to healthcare providers.
5 document workflow challenges skilled nursing facilities face
1. Fax Overload
Most SNFs still rely heavily on faxed documentation for admissions, referrals, payer communications, and outside provider communications. A single facility may receive hundreds of faxes per week, each requiring manual review and routing.
2. Scanning and Uploading
Intake documents, orders, physician consult notes, and lab results often arrive on paper, forcing staff to scan, upload, and manually index records into electronic health systems.
3. EHR Gaps
Even with robust platforms like PointClickCare, many documents enter the system as unstructured images—images that cannot be read by a computer, like PDF or TIFF files—requiring healthcare staff to manually extract key data such as demographics, insurance, and orders.
4. Compliance Risks
Lost, misfiled, or delayed documents can cause compliance issues, reimbursement delays, and compromised care transitions.
5. Staff Burnout
Administrative burdens are a major driver of burnout. An NIH study found that nursing home staff spend up to 20% of their time on documentation rather than direct care.
Automation and AI offer high ROI
The cost of inefficiency in SNFs is not theoretical, it is measurable in both financial terms and human capital.
Financial Impact – Missed Revenue
- SNFs operate on razor-thin margins, with 59% reporting negative operating margins (CLA/AHCA report).
- AI-powered referral tools like pac-IQ have accelerated admissions by 16 hours on average, reversed 200+ denials, and set off 37,580 labor hours saved in one year (Direct Supply).
Operational Efficiency – Time Savings
- AI reduced administrative workload by 30% in just six months in SNF settings (Direct Supply).
Clinical & Human Capital – Burnout Reduction
- SNFs experience extraordinarily high staff turnover — 53.3% for nursing staff and 51.9% for RNs annually NursingHome411+1. (LTCCC)
- Even modest reductions in administrative burden can translate into retention benefits, reducing the costs tied to constant hiring and training
How GenAI-powered IDP solves challenges for SNFs
Intelligent Document Processing applies AI to capture, classify, and extract data from unstructured documents. When integrated into SNF workflows, the benefits are significant:
- Automated Intake: IDP instantly recognizes and classifies incoming faxes, orders, and referrals, extracting demographics, payer details, and order types.
- Seamless Integration: Data flows directly into systems like PointClickCare, eliminating the need for manual rekeying or scanning.
- Referral Management: Referrals are automatically routed to the right queue or care team, ensuring no patient “falls through the cracks.”
- Compliance Safeguards: Audit-ready documentation trails reduce compliance risk and support clean billing.
In short, IDP acts as a digital workforce augmentation tool, helping overburdened SNF staff focus on what matters most—patient care.
Real-world impact: Metrics that matter
Organizations see drastic results when they deploy IDP for referral workflows:
| Workflow Metric | Traditional SNF Workflows (Fax/Scan/Paper) | With GenAI-Powered IDP |
| Document Intake Time | 10–15 minutes per referral packet | <1 minute (automated classification and data extraction) |
| Referral-to-Admission Time | 2–5 days delay, due to paperwork bottlenecks | Same-day or next-day processing |
| Manual Data Entry | 4–6 hours/day per staff member | 30–60 minutes/day |
| Compliance/Claim Risk | Frequent denials from missing or misfiled documents | 30–50% reduction in denial risk |
| Staff Burnout | 20% of staff time spent on paperwork | 50% reduction in time with automation |
(Sources: CMS; Becker’s; Xu et al., JAMDA; McKinsey; AHCA)
Case example: The lost referral
Referral leakage is a well-documented challenge in post-acute care. One industry analysis found that 56% of patient referrals to SNFs are still faxed, and fewer than 14% of facilities report receiving complete, usable data from hospitals most of the time (Konica Minolta). These gaps mean patients fall through the cracks, admissions are delayed, and revenue is lost. With IDP, referral packets are validated and routed instantly, ensuring every patient makes it into the right care queue:
- Delayed treatment and higher rehospitalization risk.
- Lost revenue from a missed admission or service episode.
- Staff frustration chasing down paperwork across faxes, phone calls, and portals.
With IDP, referral packets are automatically routed to the correct team for action, ensuring every patient makes it into the right specialist’s queue.
A bright outlook for Skilled Nursing Facilities with IDP
Skilled Nursing Facilities are facing unprecedented financial and workforce pressures. CMS data show that nursing home closures have accelerated in the past decade, driven largely by thin margins and staffing shortages. Without systemic improvements in efficiency, these pressures will only worsen.
IDP offers a pragmatic, high-ROI solution. By deploying AI-powered digital workers, facilities can minimize manual data entry for healthcare teams, reduce costs, retain staff, and improve care delivery. Crucially, digital workers using IDP and automation do not replace staff—they augment human capacity, acting as a digital colleague in the relentless battle against mountains of paperwork.
Modernizing document workflows
Skilled Nursing Facilities will remain a cornerstone of U.S. healthcare, but their sustainability depends on modernization. Document workflows are a hidden drain on both finances and morale, but they are also one of the most addressable problems through automation.
GenAI-powered IDP enables SNFs to work smarter, not harder: reducing referral delays, lowering denial rates, and giving nurses and aides more time with patients. In a system already stretched to the breaking point, that difference can be transformative.
Hear from the experts
Explore industry news and key insights from Weave.
