Category Archives: Post Acute Care

Do insurers have a disincentive to help with transitions of care? 

Posted on by • Posted in Average Length of Stay (ALOS), Care Transition, Case Rates, Denial, Denial Rates, Health Insurance Industry, Health System, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medicare Advantage, Medicare Denials, Post Acute Care, Post Acute Networks • Leave a comment

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A number of health systems have recently noted increasing financial challenges for Medicare Advantage (MA) patient admissions. 

One CFO shared, “our rates from MA plans are roughly on par with fee-for-service Medicare. Denials have always been a problem, making our [revenue] capture about 90 percent. But this year it’s dropped to 80 percent…it’s a crisis for us, given fast how MA volumes are growing.”

His team investigated the change and found the cause: mean length of stay for MA patients has jumped sharply. The rise was almost entirely due to difficulties in discharging patients to rehab and skilled nursing facilities. 

Key insurers have narrowed their postacute networks, resulting in patients spending days waiting for a bed. “The payers told us they had focused the network on ‘high-performing’ providers. Our data and doctors’ experiences say otherwise. They chose a handful of facilities that are cheap, with questionable quality,” their CMO reported. Attempts to engage payers to solve the problem have gone nowhere:

“They have a disincentive to work with us on this. With case rates, they are saving money if patients are languishing in an expensive hospital bed rather than going to rehab.”

This system is exploring expedited placement and expanding their portfolio of home-based care and postacute offerings, while even considering guaranteeing payment themselves. If you’re having similar challenges or have found solutions to help with transitions of care, we’d love to hear from you and learn more. 

The dire state of hospital finances (Part 1: Hospital of the Future series)

Posted on by • Posted in Administrative Footprint, Average Length of Stay (ALOS), Business Model, Business Transformations, Clinical Management of Complex Patients, Cohesive Care Teams, Competition, Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Deferred Healthcare, Disruption, Elective Procedures, Elective Surgery, Employee Layoffs, Employee Loyalty, Employee Staffing, Employee Staffing Shortage, Experience Complexity Gap, External Market Forces, Financial Instability, Financial Pressure, Financial Stewardship, Financial Strength, Financial Viability, Financially Distressed, Health System, High Deductible Health Plans, Home-Based Care, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Inflation, Innovation, Labor Cost Structure, Labor Market, Labor Shortages, Labor Spend Management, Leadership, Mission, Nonoperating Income, Nonoperating Income Dependency, Nurse Agency Staffing, Nurse Retention, Nurse Staffing, Operating Expense Reduction, Operating Expenses, Operating Income, Operating Margin, Operating Metrics, Operating Performance, Operating Revenue, Outpatient Care, Outpatient Surgery, Patient Demand, Patient Safety, Payor Contracting, Payor Mix, Post Acute Care, Quality of Care, Rationalization, Recession, Reorganization, Retention, State of the Union, Strategy, Strategy Sustainable Long Term, Streamlining Operations, Supply Chain, Talent Acquisition Strategy, Talent Competition, Talent Management, Turnover, Turnover Rates, Work Life Balance, Work-Life Balance, Workforce Challenges, Workforce Strategy • Leave a comment
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About this Episode

The majority of hospitals are predicted to have negative margins in 2022, marking the worst year financially for hospitals since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic.

In Part 1 of Radio Advisory’s Hospital of the Future series, host Rachel (Rae) Woods invites Advisory Board experts Monica Westhead, Colin Gelbaugh, and Aaron Mauck to discuss why factors like workforce shortages, post-acute financial instability, and growing competition are contributing to this troubling financial landscape and how hospitals are tackling these problems.

Links:

As we emerge from the global pandemic, health care is restructuring. What decisions should you be making, and what do you need to know to make them? Explore the state of the health care industry and its outlook for next year by visiting advisory.com/HealthCare2023.

$5.4B acquisition dramatically expands Optum’s home healthcare footprint

Posted on by • Posted in Care Management and Coordination, Care Model, Care Redesign, Home Care, Home Health, Home-Based Care, Integrated Delivery System, Market Consolidation, Mergers & Acquisitions, Optum, Optum Health, Post Acute Care • Leave a comment
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UnitedHealth Group’s Optum announced plans to acquire publicly traded, postacute care behemoth LHC Group for $5.4B. The Lafayette, LA-based company, which had $2.2B in revenue last year, operates more than 550 home health locations, 170 hospice sites, and 12 long-term acute care hospitals across 37 states, reaching 60 percent of the country’s Medicare-eligible seniors. LHC also has more than 430 hospital joint venture partners.  

The Gist: This deal will greatly expand Optum’s ability to provide home-based and long-term care, with the goal of moving more care for the insurer’s Medicare Advantage enrollees to lower-cost settings. The acquisition puts Optum’s home healthcare portfolio on par with competitor Humana, which has been the leader in amassing home-based and postacute care assets, and recently moved to take full control of home health provider Kindred at Home. LHC will be part of a growing portfolio of care assets managed by Optum Health, which also includes the company’s owned physician assets. 

Success in lowering cost of care will require Optum to integrate referrals and care management across a rapidly expanding portfolio—and ensure its physician base has confidence in these new models of care. 

The home-based care space heats up

Posted on by • Posted in Consumer Preferences, Consumerism, Health Insurance Industry, Health System, Home Care, Home Health, Home-Based Care, Market Consolidation, Market Trends, Medicare Advantage, Post Acute Care, Telemedicine, Value-Based Contracting, Value-Based Healthcare, Virtual Care Strategy, Virtual Healthcare • Leave a comment

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Home Healthcare Market Size, Growth Report, 2020-2027

This week Brookdale Senior Living, the nation’s largest operator of senior housing, with 726 communities across 43 states and annual revenues of about $3B, announced the sale of 80 percent of its hospice and home-based care division to hospital operator HCA Healthcare for $400M. The transaction gives HCA control of Brookdale’s 57 home health agencies, 22 hospice agencies, and 84 outpatient therapy locations across a 26-state footprint, marking its entry into new lines of business, and allowing it to expand revenue streams by continuing to treat patients post-discharge, in home-based settings.

Like other senior living providers, Brookdale has struggled economically during the COVID pandemic; its home and hospice care division, which serves 17,000 patients, saw revenue drop more than 16 percent last year. HCA, meanwhile, has recovered quickly from the COVID downturn, and has signaled its intention to focus on continued growth by acquisition across 2021.
 
In separate news, Optum, the services division of insurance giant UnitedHealth Group, was reported to have struck a deal to acquire Landmark Health, a fast-growing home care company whose services are aimed at Medicare Advantage-enrolled, frail elderly patients. Landmark, founded in 2014, also participates in Medicare’s Direct Contracting program.

The transaction is reportedly valued at $3.5B, although neither party would confirm or comment on the deal. The acquisition would greatly expand Optum’s home-based care delivery services, which today include physician home visits through its HouseCalls program, and remote monitoring through its Vivify Health unit.

The Brookdale and Landmark deals, along with earlier acquisitions by Humana and others, indicate that the home-based care space is heating up significantly, reflecting a broader shift in the nexus of care to patients’ homes—a growing preference among consumers spooked by the COVID pandemic. 

Along with telemedicine, home-based care may represent a new front in the tug-of-war between providers and payers for the loyalty of increasingly empowered healthcare consumers.

Hackensack Meridian acquires three northern NJ nursing homes

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Hackensack Meridian Health, the 17-hospital system in New Jersey, said Tuesday that it has added three nearby nursing homes to its network as it looks to better coordinate hospital and post-acute care.

The nursing homes are the 210-bed Prospect Heights Care Center in Hackensack, the 180-bed Regent Care Center in Hackensack and the 180-bed West Caldwell Care Center in West Caldwell. Prospect Heights is exclusively a subacute-care facility that provides rehab services after people leave the hospital. The facilities have a combined 750 employees.

Hackensack Meridian acquired 100% of Regent Care and 51% each of Prospect Heights and West Caldwell in a deal valued around $65 million, including cash and the assumption of debt. Tandem Management Co. owned all three facilities and will continue as a joint partner in Prospect Heights and West Caldwell.

With the deal, Hackensack Meridian now operates 13 post-acute-care facilities and has rebranded the new additions under the system’s name.

“Patients are staying fewer and fewer days in acute-care facilities,” said Robert Garrett, CEO of Hackensack Meridian Health. “Changes in technology are allowing patients to go home quicker even after receiving pretty intense care and receiving complicated procedures. The best way to ensure that there is a good hand-off is if we own and operate these post-acute-care facilities.”

Hospitals can benefit from having a strong relationship with the nursing homes they refer people to by avoiding federal readmission penalties.

Garrett said the deal will make it easier to find a nursing home bed for patients ready to be discharged and free up beds for patients waiting in the hospital’s emergency department. Hackensack Meridian Medical Center is about a mile away from two of the nursing homes.

The system did not commit a defined amount to capital improvements but plans to make significant investments in the facilities’ IT systems so they can share electronic medical records with its hospitals, said Stephen Baker, Hackensack Meridian’s president of post-acute care.

Baker said Hackensack Meridian’s staffing model is different from other nursing homes in that its facilities use mostly registered nurses; other nursing homes use mostly licensed practical nurses. Its patients tend to be more complex, which allows the system’s facilities to receive higher payments from Medicare. Some of its facilities earn 50% to 60% from Medicaid, which typically pays lower rates.

“We’re able to subsidize lower rates with higher rates from subacute care and favorable rates from managed care organizations,” Baker said. —Jonathan LaMantia