As financial strain continues to impact hospitals across the country, health leaders are seeking partnership to increase financial stability amid an ever-changing healthcare landscape.
Partnership can help hospitals effectively obtain additional resources to provide high-quality patient care, strengthen service lines and improve access and the overall patient experience.
Read this guide to discover how hospital leaders can overcome today’s unique challenges and make the most of the growing opportunity through joint-venture or contract management rehabilitation partnership – ultimately benefitting your hospital’s financial performance.
With the help of an experienced partner, hospitals can enhance their post-acute strategies in five key ways:
1. Improved Performance Under Value-Based Care
The shift to value-based care has pushed hospitals to reduce spending while improving quality and outcomes. In a study of value-based trends, it was found that more than a third of national reimbursement contracts are now value-based. This percentage has trended upward every year since 2015.1
A post-acute partnership strategy helps equip hospital staff and leadership with the resources to increase care quality and efficiency, make more timely transfers to post-acute settings, reduce readmission risk and generate long-term cost savings for the entire hospital.
2. Increased Care Efficiency to Reduce Rehospitalizations
Rehospitalizations and other transfers in the post-acute continuum can lead to poor patient satisfaction and care quality, ultimately creating negative financial consequences. Research shows that some of the lowest-performing hospitals around the nation can experience readmission penalties two to three times higher than those performing at an average rate.2
Through specialized expertise, access to national resources and data, and a team with a focused ability to recruit and retain top talent, a rehabilitation partner can greatly expand a hospital’s ability to provide excellent patient care in an efficient manner. Further, a rehabilitation partner can help produce faster recovery times, reduce care costs and can create a more positive overall patient experience.
3. Supports Medicare’s “Triple Aim”
Successfully managing all aspects of a rehabilitation unit has become more challenging due to the growing complexity of patients treated, readmission risks and the expansion of value-based care integration. However, if a health system is able to achieve an effective post-acute strategy they can better manage the intricacies of the program.
Rehabilitation partnership supports Medicare’s triple aim, helping to:
- Enhance care. Provide exceptional care to individuals through high-quality programs aimed at improving a patient’s health and independence.
- Improve community health. Experienced partners have access to the latest national trends and resources beyond the data available to individual facilities. This allows local programs to be equipped with best-in-class treatment plans to effectively treat a wider variety of complex conditions.
- Lower care cost. Greater patient access, expertise and quality lead to better outcomes, lower length of stay and lower readmissions. Additionally, facilities are able to more effectively deploy resources and improve operational efficiency, further lowering costs.
An effective partner will also have a well-organized system for efficiently transitioning patients through phases of care. This helps lower per-patient costs, improves regulatory compliance and enables patients requiring specialized care to receive high-quality care.
4. Specialized Care for COVID-19 and Medically Complex Patients
Throughout the pandemic, specialty hospitals have played an invaluable role in the public health response. Research notes that 20 percent of patients recovering from COVID-19 require facility-based rehabilitation.2 This value was shown through the interdisciplinary rehabilitation teams who helped patients recover from severe clinical presentations of COVID-19.
Hospitals that partnered with experts to operate their inpatient rehabilitation program prior to the pandemic were often better prepared to take on the fluctuations in care, including patient volume, recruitment challenges, advanced safety protocols and new therapies for COVID-19 patients.
5. Streamlined Patient Care Path
As stated in the guide, “10 Steps to Optimize Your Rehabilitation Unit,” research notes that rehabilitation therapy services are expected to continue to grow following COVID-19 through 2028. With this expected growth, it is important to evaluate where patients are going to receive rehabilitative care and where there is an opportunity to keep patients within the system.
Expanding post-acute services within the hospital’s care continuum helps the hospital to have more control over outcomes, reduce care transitions and help maintain patient satisfaction throughout the care journey.
How Partnership Can Help with Hospital Financial Performance
Partnering with a focused rehabilitation expert can ease the burden of managing inpatient rehabilitation, increase patient access, and help improve clinical quality and operational efficiency – all of which will ultimately help the hospital achieve greater financial performance.
To learn how partnership can help your hospital reach its strategic goals, visit Kindredrehab.com.
References:
- Gold, J., & Duvall, S. (2020, June). The Next Decade of Value-Based Care. Hany's Managed Care.
- Fary Khan, MBBS, MD, FAFRM (RACP), Bhasker Amatya, DMedSci, MD, MPH, Medical Rehabilitation in Pandemics: Towards a New Perspective, Journal of Rehabilitation Medicine, Vol. 52, Issue 4, April 9, 2020
Kindred Hospital Rehabilitation Services works with more than 300 hospital-based programs nationwide to bring the best possible clinical and operational outcomes.