Early into the Trump presidency and health care/health policy is front and center. The first “Obamacare repeal and replace” attempt crashed and burned. The upcoming roll-out of the next round of bundled payments (cardiac and femur fracture) is delayed to October from the end-of-March target date. Logically, one can question is a landscape shift forming? Doubtful. Too many current realities such as the need to slow spending growth plus find new and innovative population health and payment models are still looming. These policy realities beget other realities. One such reality is that hospitals and health systems must find ways to partner with and integrate with, the post-acute provider industry.
In late 2016, Premier, Inc. (the national health care improvement organization) released the results of a study indicating that 85% of health system leaders were interested in creating expanded affiliations with post-acute providers. Interestingly, 90% of the same group said they believed challenges to do so would exist (Premier conducted the survey in summer of 2016 via 52 C-suite, health system executives). Most of the challenges? The gaps that exist “known and unknown” between both provider segments (acute and post-acute) and the lack of efficient communication interfaces (software) between the segments.
On the surface, bundled payments notwithstanding, the push for enhanced integration is driven by a number of subtle but tactile market and economic shifts.
- Inpatient hospital lengths of stay are dropping, driven by an increasing number of patients covered by managed care. Today, the largest payer source contributor of inpatient days, Medicare, is 30.6% “managed”…and growing. Medicaid is 62.7% and commercial, nearly 100% (99%). Source: http://www.mcol.com/managed_care_penetration
- Payment at the hospital end is increasingly tied to discharge experience – what happens after the inpatient stay. The onus today is on the hospital (and growing) for increasing numbers of patient types (DRG correlated) to discharge the patient properly such that the same does not beget a readmission to the hospital. Too many readmissions equal payment reductions.
- Population health, focused-care models such as ACOs are evolving. Their evolution is all about finding the lowest cost, highest quality centers of care. Other BPCI (bundled payment) initiative projects such as Model 3, focus directly on the post-acute segment of care. Unlike CJR (and the recently delayed cardiac bundles), the BPCI demonstration that began in 2013 covers 48 episodes of care (DRG based) and has participating providers (voluntarily) operating programs in all four model phases, nationwide.
- Patient preference continues to demand more care opportunities at-home. Never mind the increased risk of complication with longer inpatient hospital stays (the risk of infection, pressure injuries, weight loss, delirium, etc. increases as stays increase), it is patient preference to discharge quickly and preferably, to home with services (aka home care).
Regardless the fate of Obamacare now or in the near future, these trends are unlikely to change as they have been moving separate from Obamacare. Arguably, the ACA/Obamacare accelerated some of them. Nonetheless, the baked-in market forces that have emanated from ACOs and care episode payments illustrate that even in infancy, these different models produce (generally) more efficient care, lower costs and improved patient satisfaction and outcomes.
As with any integration approach such as a merger for example, cultural differences are key. The culture of post-acute care is markedly different from that of acute/hospital care. For hospitals to appreciate this difference, look no farther than the two key determinants of post-acute culture: regulation and payment. The depth and breadth plus the scope of survey and enforcement activity is substantially greater on the post-acute side than the acute side. As an example, observe the SNF industry and how enforcement occurs. Hospitals are surveyed for re-accreditation once every three years. The typical SNF is visited no less than four times annually: annual certification and three complaint surveys.
In terms of payment, the scope is drastically different. While hospitals struggle to manage far more payers than a post-acute provider, the amount that is paid to a hospital is substantially larger than that paid to a post-acute provider. At one point years back, the differences were substantiated largely by acuity differences across patients. While a gap still exists, it has narrowed substantially with the post-acute provider world seeing an increase in acuity yet lacking a concomitant payment that matches this increase.
Given this cultural framework, post-acute providers can struggle with translating hospital expectations and of course, vice-versa. Point-of-fact, there is no real regulatory framework in an SNF under federal law for “post-acute” patients. The rules are identical for a patient admitted for a short-stay or for the rest of his/her life. Despite the fact that the bulk of SNF admissions today are of the post-acute variety, the regulations create conformity for residency, presumptively for the long-term. Taking the following into consideration, a challenge such as minimizing a post-acute SNF stay to eight days for a knee replacement (given by a hospital to an SNF) is logical but potentially fraught with the peril presented by the federal SNF Conditions of Participation. The SNF cannot dictate discharge. A patient/resident that wishes to remain has rights under the law and a series of appeal opportunities, etc. that can slow the process to a crawl. At minimum, a dozen or more such landmines exist in analogous scenarios.
Making integration work between post-acute and acute providers is a process of identifying the “gaps” between the two worlds and then developing systems and education that bridge such gaps. Below is my list (experiential) of the gaps and some brief notes/comments on what to do bridge the same. NOTE: This list is generally applicable regardless of provider type (e.g., SNF, HHA, etc.).
- Information Tech/Compatibility: True interoperability does not yet exist. Sharing information can be daunting, especially at the level required between the provider segments for good care coordination. The simple facts are that the two worlds are quite different in terms of paper work, billing requirements, documentation, etc. Focus on the stuff that truly matters such as assessments, diagnoses, physician notes, plans of care, treatment records, medications, diagnostics, patient advance directives and demographics. Most critical is to tie information for treating physicians so that duplication is avoided, if possible.
- Regulatory Frameworks: This is most critical, hospital/physician side to the post-acute side, less so the other way. Earlier I mentioned just one element regarding an SNF and discharge. There are literally, dozens more. I often hear hospitals frustrated by HHAs and SNFs regarding the “rules” for accepting patients and what can/cannot be done in terms of physician orders, how fast, etc. For example, it might be OK in the hospital to provide “Seroquel for sleep or inpatient delirium” but it is not OK in the SNF. HHAs need physician face-to-face encounters just to begin to get care moving, including orders for DME, etc. There is no short-cut. Creating a pathway for the discharging hospital and the physician components to and through the post-acute realm is critical to keep stays short and outcomes high… as well as minimize delays in care and readmissions.
- Resource Differences: Understanding the resource capacities of post-acute, including payment, is necessary for smooth integration. What this means is that the acute and physician world needs to recognize that stay minimization is important but so is overall care minimization or better, simplification. Unnecessary care via duplicative or unnecessary medications, tests, etc. can easily eat away at the meager margins that are operative for SNFs and HHAs. For example, I have seen all too many times where a patient has an infection and is discharged to an SNF on a Vancomycin IV with orders for continued treatment for four more days. Those four days are likely negative margin for the SNF. A better alternative? If possible, a less expensive antibiotic or send the remaining Vancomycin doses to the SNF. Too many tests, too many medications, too much redundancy erodes post-acute margin quickly. Finding common ground between providers with shared resource opportunities is important for both segments to achieve efficiency and still provide optimal care.
- Language Differences: In this case, I don’t mean dialect. Industry jargon and references are different. I often recommend cheat-sheets between providers just to make sure that everyone can have a “hospital to SNF to HHA” dictionary. Trust me, there is enough difference to make a simple working dictionary worth the effort.
- Education/Knowledge: The gap between staff working in different environments can be wide, particularly as the same relates to how and why things are done the way they are. For example, therapy. Physical therapy in a hospital for the acute stay is markedly different than the physical therapy in a home health setting or a SNF setting. Care planning is different, treatments similar but session length and documentation requirements are vastly different. The clinical elements are surprisingly similar but the implementation elements, markedly different. The notion that one staff level is clinically superior to another is long dispelled. SNF nurses can face as many clinical challenges and perhaps more due to no/minimal immediate physician coverage, as a hospital nurse. True, there are specialty differences (CCU, Neuro ICU, Trauma, etc.) but at the level where patients flow through acute to post-acute, the clinical elements are very similar. The aspect of care differences and the how and why certain things are done in certain settings is where interpretation and education is required.
- System and Care Delivery: While the diagnosis may follow, assuring proper integration among the various levels or elements of care requires systematic care delivery. The best language: clinical pathways and algorithms. Developing these across settings for an episode of care creates a recipe or roadmap that minimizes redundancy, misinterpretation, and lack of preparation (all of which create bad outcomes). With these in-place, common acute admissions that beget post-acute discharges, places every care aspect within the same “playbook”.