The end of the year tends to ignite a fire under those looking to achieve their organization’s goals.
This is the case for some of the biggest leaders in home healthcare in the last three months of the year.
In the remaining months of 2022, home health care leaders are focusing on the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) pending payment rule, rolling out new programs to improve service delivery. care, staff continuity and more.
To learn more about what providers have in store, Home Health Care News asked five CEOs to detail their plans for the rest of the year, and how achieving those goals would move their organizations forward.
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Better Life Health at Home – Alivia Care’s home health arm – currently focuses on two areas. One is a better payer mix, which means fewer insurance cases and more Medicare and VA.
The other is to improve the patient and family experience by having the same staff consistently engage with the patient and family during their care; and roll out more care-focused programs to align with the specific needs of patients referred to us from the acute care setting.
For the patient and family experience, we are moving away from a transactional focus on the patient’s injury, illness or disease, and looking at how we can – where possible – ensure that the same staff is always involved with the same patients. Creating this consistently will help improve trust, and we believe it will allow us to serve as a guide as the patient and family move through the episode of care, which should also impact readmissions. We make a special effort to include the family and to very actively solicit and reflect the patient’s goals, concerns and needs both at the outset of care and throughout the delivery of care. We use a texting tool to allow patients and their caregivers to provide us with more timely feedback so that we can make adjustments and meet expectations. We strongly believe that consumers are more educated and empowered and expect to be more involved in the delivery of their care and decisions, and we will favor agencies that understand this. This is how we tackle growing consumerism in healthcare and hopefully improve the experience for patients and caregivers.
We are also developing and planning to roll out the first of our care-focused programs, which will address cardiac care and cardiac rehabilitation and focus on outcomes for specific patient types. This is the first of many care-oriented or specialty care programs that we intend to develop and roll out in our service area. We believe that having a specific clinical program tailored to the unique needs of the patient will allow us to improve outcomes and help those who made the referral, such as the hospital and the physician, know that we can provide good results for their patients.
— Susan Ponder-Stansel, President and CEO of Alivia Care Inc.
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One of Jet Health’s goals is to continue to focus on our clinicians as a key driver of business success. We have invested significantly in recruitment initiatives to attract qualified members to our team. In addition to the flexibility that many home care and palliative care providers offer, Jet Health encourages ongoing skill development through opportunities for clinical advancement, program specialization, and use of technology. , all designed to improve the delivery of care and the satisfaction of our professionals. Optimizing the workforce in each of the company’s branches, coupled with the appropriate specialist skills, will enable the organization to better serve the communities in which we operate.
Another goal is to expand the use of technology to complement our existing care delivery model. The use of technology – such as remote patient monitoring – allows our clinicians to be alerted to subtle status changes among our patient base between in-person visits, so that we can respond to them, thereby mitigating the possibility of major problems. Televisits can be quickly organized once the triage has met all needs, and then interventions can be implemented. We believe this approach will lead to reduced hospitalizations, better informed patients, better communication and better overall outcomes.
Completion of these initiatives will equip Jet Health clinicians and professionals with the necessary tools and ability to deliver care to the most acute patients at home, and better position them to meet the complex and challenging demands of a delivery. evolving health care. system.
— Stacie Bratcher, CEO of Jet Health
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Externally, AccentCare focuses on political issues facing our community. Securing legislative or regulatory relief from the proposed home healthcare cuts is a top priority for us. We share the community’s concerns about the methodology CMS uses to interpret the Congressional intent on budget neutrality of the PDGM, and believe that a delay is reasonable and necessary to ensure patient access to home health services. . If CMS does not remove the payment reduction portion of the proposed rule, every effort will be made to support the efforts of our congressional home health champions to include the Preserving Access to Health Act. at home in the essential end-of-year package. .
Internally, AccentCare remains focused on the employee experience, and this will continue for the remainder of 2022 and beyond. After listening to our employees, we reinforce the culture we seek to reinvent care together. Part of this responds to the need for a better understanding of the communities we serve. By the end of the year, more than 300 AccentCare leaders will have completed a rigorous 10-week Intrinsic Inclusion course, a process led by our Head of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion . We will be rolling out this training to more of our staff next year and will also continue a process of integrating sustainable DEI efforts into our community outreach plans. We see tremendous benefits in increasing access to communities that have historically been underserved by home care organizations.
— Stephan Rodgers, CEO of AccentCare
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An important goal for VNS Health is to continue to work with the federal government and CMS, as well as our industry colleagues, to undo the 7.69% multi-year reduction in Medicare payments to home health care that is expected to start in 2023. Using our own data, we were able to quantify the impact these cuts would have on providers already struggling with labor shortages, making it even more difficult for them to meet demand. growing home health care, especially in underserved communities. Our efforts now focus on convincing the Biden administration to remove the cuts from the final rule, which is expected to be released by November 1, and working with stakeholders on a reimbursement policy that meets the needs of providers.
Another key focus of VNS Health is to market and sell services to external healthcare organizations through our professional solutions group. We have used our experience in managing care for high risk and medically complex members in our own health plan to create a solution for an external health plan and we see the opportunity for other clients to benefit also. We market our evidence-based HELPS tasking tool, which uses algorithms to assess personal care needs, and we are actively involved in helping other organizations administer Medicare palliative care benefits. We believe these efforts will advance both VNS Health and our industry.
— Dan Savitt, President and CEO of VNS Health
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The Visiting Nurse’s goal for Q4 is to complete targeted projects to prepare for the value-based purchase model of home health services and ongoing rate reductions. We have made significant gains in our nursing staff and clinical practice, ensuring our employees are ready to deliver quality service in the new fee environment. By achieving these goals, we will be better positioned to remain competitive in today’s healthcare landscape.
