Switching from Therap: What Colorado I/DD Agencies Should Check First

Short answer: Switching I/DD documentation systems is rarely a software problem — it is a data, billing, and staff-adoption problem. Before you evaluate any alternative to Therap, get written answers on five things: who owns and can export your historical records, how EVV reaches your state aggregator, what happens to open claims during cutover, how deployment and hosting work, and what onboarding actually includes. This guide gives you the questions and what a good answer looks like.

Therap is the incumbent in intellectual and developmental disability services. It is widely deployed, well established, and for many agencies it is the only system their staff have ever used. That is exactly why switching feels risky, and why most agencies that consider it never get past the first conversation.

The risk is real, but it is usually mis-located. Agencies worry about features and end up hurt by data and billing continuity. This guide is written around what actually goes wrong.

Start with the question nobody asks first

Before features, ask this: if we leave in three years, what do we take with us, in what format, and who pays for the export?

Ask it of your current vendor and of every vendor you evaluate, including us. The answer tells you more about a long-term relationship than any demo. What you want to hear:

• Your records are yours, exportable on request, in a documented machine-readable format
• Export includes service documentation, goal and outcome history, incident reports, and EVV records — not just a client list
• There is no export fee, or the fee is stated in the contract rather than quoted at the moment you ask

An agency that cannot answer this quickly is telling you something. So is one that can.

The five areas where switches actually fail

1. Historical documentation

Your service documentation is a legal record. Audits look backward, sometimes years. A switch that leaves history stranded in a system you no longer pay for creates a problem that surfaces at the worst possible time.

The honest answer from any vendor is that some history imports cleanly and some does not. Be suspicious of anyone who promises everything transfers perfectly. Ask which fields map, and which become read-only archives.

2. EVV and the state aggregator

If you deliver services subject to electronic visit verification, this is the part that can stop revenue. In Colorado, visits reach the state through Sandata, either via the state-supplied system or through a Provider Choice system that transmits on your behalf.

What matters during a switch:

• Whether the new system is already transmitting to your state's aggregator for other agencies
• How visits recorded during the cutover window are handled, and by which system
• What happens to visits that fail transmission mid-switch, and who fixes them

Ask to see the exception queue in a demo. Every EVV system produces failed transmissions; the difference between vendors is how quickly you can find and fix them.

3. Open claims and the revenue gap

The most expensive part of a bad switch is a billing gap. Claims in flight when you cut over can fall between two systems.

Plan for a defined overlap: the old system continues to bill what it has already documented, while the new system begins documenting forward from a fixed date. Agree the date in advance, in writing, and make sure both your billing staff and your vendor understand which system owns which claims.

Ask specifically: if a claim documented in the old system is denied after cutover, where do we rework it?

4. Staff adoption

Direct support professionals are the people who decide whether a documentation system works. They are also the people least consulted during a selection.

Include them. Have two or three DSPs use the candidate system on a phone, on a real shift, and tell you what happens. Watch for how many taps it takes to log a visit, whether the app works without signal, and whether goal documentation happens during the shift or gets reconstructed at the end of the week.

A system that documents accurately only when someone has spare time is a system that will not document accurately.

5. Deployment and where your data lives

Most platforms in this space are cloud-only and multi-tenant. For some agencies that is fine. For others — those with board-level data governance requirements, contractual restrictions, or programs in facilities with unreliable connectivity — it is a blocker.

If it matters to you, ask directly: can the platform run on your own server, in an isolated environment, or fully disconnected from the internet? The answer is usually no. Where it is yes, ask whether it is the same product with the same features, or a reduced version.

What a realistic switch timeline looks like

Agencies that switch successfully tend to move in stages rather than all at once:

1. Documentation first. One program or office begins documenting in the new system while everything else continues unchanged.
2. Then outcomes and goals. Once staff are comfortable logging services, add goal and behavior tracking.
3. Then EVV and billing. The revenue-critical parts move last, when the documentation feeding them is already reliable.
4. Then the rest of the organization, program by program.

This takes longer than a single cutover weekend and fails far less often. Any vendor pushing you to move everything at once should explain why.

Questions to bring to every demo

Print these. Ask all of them, of everyone, including us.

• What exactly can we export if we leave, in what format, and at what cost?
• Which of our historical records import, and which become read-only archives?
• Are you transmitting EVV to our state's aggregator today, for other agencies?
• How do you handle failed EVV transmissions, and can I see that screen?
• What is your recommended cutover sequence, and why?
• Who owns claims documented before the switch?
• Does the caregiver app work without a signal?
• Can this run on our own infrastructure if our board requires it?
• What does onboarding include, who does it, and how long does it take?
• What did your last agency of our size find hardest about switching?

The last question is the most useful one. An honest vendor has an answer ready.

Where OutcomeGrid fits

We build for Colorado I/DD, HCBS waiver, and self-direction agencies specifically, rather than for every state at once. That narrowness is deliberate: it means Provider Choice EVV with Sandata, HCBS waiver billing, day habilitation units, and CDASS self-direction are built into the product rather than configured around it.

We also run on your own server, in an isolated environment, or in our managed cloud — the same platform in each case.

If you are evaluating a change, we will answer every question above in writing, including the export question. Ask us the last one too.