How Abbey Healthcare Transformed Care Home Operations with Breis CHMS

Background

Abbey Healthcare, a prominent care provider with homes across the United Kingdom, was struggling with an aging and incompatible care management system. The software had become unreliable, lacked essential features, and was eventually withdrawn by its vendor. As operations expanded and compliance demands grew, Abbey needed a new solution—one that was intuitive, flexible, and capable of supporting care home management across multiple regions.

The Challenge

Before implementing Breis, Abbey Healthcare faced several major challenges:

• Difficulty tracking resident admissions, discharges, and occupancy status in real-time.
• Manual storage and handling of contracts and funding letters, leading to bulky paper files, misplacement risks, and inefficiencies during audits.
• A highly manual and error-prone invoicing and billing process, particularly in Scottish homes, where resident fees frequently changed due to financial assessments.
• Cumbersome processes for tracking funding sources, expiry dates, and fee structures, often managed through spreadsheets.
• No real-time generation of final accounts upon resident discharge.
• Finance and billing teams spent excessive time preparing accruals, deferrals, and reconciling invoices.
• A complete lack of automation in credit control and invoice generation.

The Solution: Implementing Breis

To overcome these issues, Abbey Healthcare adopted the Breis Carehome Management System. Designed specifically for care providers, Breis offered a seamless and user-friendly interface that could support operations across all UK regions.

Key Benefits Realized

1. Instant Final Accounts at Discharge

Breis enables the automatic generation of resident final accounts immediately upon discharge. This streamlined process significantly reduced delays and ensured faster financial reconciliation.

2. Flexible Invoice Adjustments Pre-Approval

Managers and billing teams can now make real-time adjustments to invoices before approval, allowing better alignment with changing fee structures or funding arrangements—especially helpful in homes affected by frequent financial reassessments.

3. Full Automation of Invoicing

One of the most significant wins for Abbey’s billing team was the automation of invoice generation:

• Invoices are automatically created based on live data from the resident’s care record.
• No manual involvement is required from the credit control team.
• This has drastically improved efficiency, accuracy, and payment timelines.

4. Digitized Document Management

All contracts, funding letters, and supporting documents are now stored within the Breis system, linked directly to the resident’s profile. This:

• Eliminated the need for bulky physical files.
• Improved document security and accessibility.
• Made audits and credit control checks as easy as one click.

5. Automated Fee Change Reconciliation

In UK regions like Scotland, where fee changes due to financial assessments are common, Breis automatically:

• Calculates shortfalls and overpayments.
• Issues credit notes or additional charges instantly.
  This feature eliminated hours of manual reconciliation previously required by the billing team.

6. Real-Time Dashboards for Managers

Breis provides clear dashboards displaying:

• Number of residents per home.
• Funding sources, types, and weekly fee structures.
• Alerts for funding expirations and changes.
  This has replaced Excel tracking and manual reminders, improving operational oversight across all UK homes.

7. 40% Reduction in Month-End Accounting Time

With integrated tools for accruals, deferrals, and revenue tracking, Abbey’s finance team now spends 40% less time preparing monthly accounts. This efficiency boost enables more strategic financial planning and less time on admin.

Conclusion

The rollout of Breis across all Abbey Healthcare homes in the UK has transformed operations from manual and fragmented to digital, efficient, and automated. From admissions to discharge, from billing to audits, Breis has delivered a platform that simplifies the complex—and gives staff more time to focus on delivering high-quality care.

“Breis has empowered our teams by making processes faster, cleaner, and more transparent. We are not just saving time, we are delivering better care.”
— Finance Director, Abbey Healthcare