Dealing with health issues that pop up, whether it’s a family member or us, is a part of life we’d like to live without. When it happens, we expect our doctors to provide us with a diagnosis and quickly do what’s necessary to make us healthy again. Unfortunately, in many cases, it’s not that simple. For more complicated ailments, we often have to see several specialists, all of whom must work off the other’s medical records to reach an accurate prognosis. This process can take weeks or months, leaving the sick frustrated and wondering why there isn’t a better way.
When it comes to our health, our medical professionals don’t want to take any shortcuts, and accessing medical records and suggesting the next steps takes time. Ensuring the most accurate and detailed health records gives physicians a 360 view of the patient’s problem and results in the most optimal remedy.
Just as doctors must keep accurate patient medical records chronicling their health, including diagnosis, treatments, and outcomes—Servicers must also maintain a history of a homeowner’s loss mitigation application and process to help them keep their homes.
Like the mortgage industry, healthcare has tons of regulations designed around consumer protection. If someone sees a specialist outside of their GP’s (general practitioner) healthcare system, they must authorize the sharing of their medical records. However, if you visit different doctors within the system, they can all access, reference, and make notes on a patient’s medical record.
Brace’s application Timeline feature works under the same premise. Each application has its own chronological summary that any Servicing specialist can access at any point. Your SPOCs (Single Point of Contact) are like hospital admins, referencing the records and assisting homeowners directly if they need help with the application process. Processors are your nurses, collecting homeowner vitals and ensuring accurate information. Lastly, your underwriters are the doctors, reviewing the files and crafting the best possible loss mitigation diagnosis for the homeowner.
Servicers can now easily track changes over time, identify patterns, and make informed predictions about what might happen in the future. A QC auditing tool at its core, the Brace Timeline is also a communication assistant and a document archive.
If you pay attention during your visits, you’ll notice the primary reason we wait so long to see our doctor is the amount of recording information that takes place. From the nurses at the front desk to the ones that take your vitals to the physicians themselves, a significant amount of time is dedicated to updating records. When you think about it, our face time with the doctor is often the shortest part of our appointment.
With Brace’s Timeline feature, every action completed within a loss mitigation application, from application creation to loan modification, is automatically recorded. The activity view shows a full summarized static record of every action completed on the file during its lifetime. It lets you view all events at each stage in the application process, the documents uploaded at that time, and any Servicer notes.
Whether it’s a processor confirming borrower data, an underwriter recommending a workout, or a borrower responding to an information request —Timeline timestamps each action and records the user who performed it. Even actions of third-party vendors appear in the activity section, such as a credit reporting bureau uploading a report or a payroll company linking an employer account.
Unlike at your doctor’s office, Brace Timeline saves time by eliminating the need to record your actions manually and by quickly understanding where you are in an application (and why). QC teams can even print out entire timelines in case they want to file away hard copies or share them with other Servicing leaders.
Transferring and storing records work differently for Servicers than for doctors. If a physician is outside of a patient’s typical healthcare system, many doctors still prefer faxing them or sending hard copies to avoid the HIPAA risks associated with sharing records electronically. Thanks to the rigorous virus scanning protocols within the Brace system, borrowers, Servicers, and even third-party vendors (using secure APIs) can securely attach documents to an application.
The Brace Timeline doc-viewing feature is an incredible time-saving tool for Servicers who need to locate and view application documents quickly. The option to access all the application docs within Timeline expedites the QC process greatly. A history of the document is also given, and servicing specialists can zoom in to view it or download it, as they can with the doc viewer throughout the application workflow.
You will also see a rundown of the doc information and history within the details portion. This dropdown provides helpful info like the document name, when it was added, and the section of the application it’s linked to.
It’s concerning that in 2023 when it comes to our health, we still see nurses and doctors put pen to paper. You’ll know if you’ve had the misfortune of going to the ER recently. A precise and reliable notation system is no less crucial for someone keeping or losing their home.
The notes feature within Timeline makes it so everyone working on an application sees essential comments through the notes feature. Servicers can add as many notes as necessary to any event within the Timeline.
An event is anything occurring within the activity portion of Timeline, such as a workout being presented to the borrower. Critical notes, like the details of a borrower’s PoA, can be pinned at the top of the page for immediate viewing.
Any Servicer with access to the Brace Portal can add a note to Timeline. However, for maximum transparency, notes cannot be deleted. Instead, they are sent to a deleted notes section.
A patient’s medical record and the Timeline feature within the Brace Default Management Platform provide a chronological history that helps people by delivering assistance through informed decisions—resulting in the best course of action. The standout difference between the two is that every step is automatically recorded within Timeline. Also, the notes feature within Timeline provides context and clarity for underwriters to deliver the best decisions for the homeowner every time.
When the file is ready to be reviewed by QC, a clear audit trail is already formed, and every doc associated with an application is easily referenced. The application’s entire story is streamlined and easily accessible, eliminating time-consuming backtracking. All resulting in more files being closed faster and more homeowners helped.
Please contact us if you’d like to schedule a demo and learn all the details about the Brace Timeline.
