Thanks for the comment and for reading the post(s) on my site. I agree with you entirely – there are many talented, qualified people out there and it sounds like you may be in the same “pool” as my friend Steve. My challenge, which is why I titled the post “Rare” is that, while well traveled, etc., I only know a limtied number of people well and even fewer from a direct work perspective. In short, I know many people a little and only a few to the level of Steve. If I could feasibly connect all the talented people with the right opportunities, I would certainly do so as healthcare would truly be, better off than what I often experience. To the extent that I get enough responses from folks, I will write a post along the lines that you suggest. In the interim, if you are like my friend Steve and searching, feel free to send me a resume. The least I can do is see if I can make a connection or two for you.

Best Wishes to You!

Reg

I would greatly appreciate a future blog post, wherein, you share some of the insightful feedback and recommendations you receive from industry folks on behalf of “Steve”…so the rest of us can use this well-placed advice and mentoring and hopefully get on with our careers. The industry is benching a lot of great marketing talent, while focusing on financial and clinical priorities…taking a very short-sighted apporoach to long term growth. How can we change that?

Thank you and best wishes to your Steve. He is lucky to have you in his court!

Thanks for the comment and thanks for reading.

Reg

As patient options become more limited due to reduced reimbursement for those options, hospice will increasingly be utilized. Decreased census now is only a temporary blip in a steadily-increasing industry.

No, there are no regulations that prohibit ownership among different certified providers. In fact, many structures include different Medicare providers controlled by the same entity combining nursing homes, home health, hospice, etc. under one common entity. An organization that I headed as a CEO included nursing homes and hospices (among other provider entites such as physician groups) under a common parent entity. It is important to note however that ownership does not negate or immunize an organization from any federal laws that prohibit self-referral or require disclosure, not to mention any other administrative or federal code requirements. For example, in the case of a nursing home organization owning and operating a hospice, the nursing home can establish a contractual arrangement with its own hospice to provide hospice care to its residents. In fact, nothing today in current law prohibits the nursing home from having an “exclusive” contract with its own hospice. The key here is that the contract between the parties must conform to the provisions in the applicable medicare/federal regs as applied to each organization. Similarly, the two entities would have to be mindful of staffing arrangements such that the hospice had its own core staff as required and that the same staff were not de facto shared between the individual entities. Hospice requires core staff in nursing, social work, bereavement, and physician/medical director. Shared staff via contract, which can be with the nursing home, can include therapies, food service, activities, pharmacy, and others as may be required by patient need. The important point to remember is that while ownership may be common or shared, the operations of both entities are separate as far as the law is concerned and the resulting requirements for each provider (SNF and Hospice) are truly different and cannot be circumvented simply by common ownership. There are definite economies of scale that can come into play, provided that the “owning” organization is aware of the applciable federal regulations and uses proper structural steps to insure, where required, arms-length arrangements.

Hope this helps and thanks for the comment.