Healthcare, Senior Living, Economics
A major concentration within my firm, H2 Healthcare, is compliance work. My wife heads this section of the practice, and she is widely known as one of (if not THE) the foremost post-acute/senior living experts on clinical quality, compliance, and risk mitigation/risk management. Her book on reducing survey risk for SNFs is still available on … Read more
No other segment of senior living/senior care got rocked as much by the pandemic as skilled nursing. Frankly, the industry had challenges from labor shortages and lagging reimbursement entering the pandemic (2020). The pandemic didn’t just accentuate these issues, it blew them up in terms of magnitude (impact) while adding supply chain issues, inflation, and … Read more
Happy Hump Day! Another Wednesday with news too heavy to ignore. I’ll try to return to some levity and light in future Wednesday features. For a number of years, CMS has been playing with developing a staffing level mandate. The first CMS study from 20 years ago recommended a 4.1 hours per day benchmark. Recently, … Read more
Back in early June, I wrote a post on how Medicare/CMS was intending to audit 5 claims from every participating SNF in the country. The audits would be staggered and conducted by MACs (Medicare Audit Contractors). That post is available here: https://wp.me/ptUlY-AR As we are now three months into the audit process, details are emerging … Read more
With a push to find increasing value in care delivery on the part of payers, providers in assisted living and home health are seeking to carve out a niche in what can best be described as “hospital or acute care” alternative locations. The most forward trend is occurring in home health, known as hospital-at-home care. … Read more
I spend a lot of time in rural America, primarily in the upper-Midwest (Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois, etc.). With the pandemic, the struggling economy, high inflation, high energy costs, labor supply challenges, and rising interest rates, rural health care is struggling like never before. A story on the Fox Business website captures the plight of rural … Read more
Yesterday, I wrote a post regarding health systems and providers looking at finding efficiencies and, in some cases, cutting staff – particularly at the administrative and executive levels. Providers are being tasked with making do with less as the economic headwinds remain stiff, even gale force in some cases. Part of the challenge for providers … Read more
As the economy remains “challenging” and providers are finding rising capital costs and rising staffing costs, survival mode is where many are operating. For any hospital, SNF, Home Health Agency, or Hospice, labor (wages and benefits) is typically about 60% of the expense budget. With direct care staff in short supply in nearly every market … Read more
I’ve been rather busy lately and my wife’s side of the practice (compliance, litigation), very much so. Suffice to say, as the two prime partners and owners of H2 healthcare, we work collaboratively and support each other. In other words, her “busy” is mine too and vice-versa. So today, I’m setting aside for catch-up and … Read more
A practice concentration within my business, H2 Healthcare, LLC, belongs to my wife who is also, the firm’s Senior Partner and co-founder and co-owner. The practice area is compliance and a strong focus within, is litigation support/expert witness/forensic nursing. My wife is frankly, one of the foremost clinical compliance (nursing) experts in the nation, supporting … Read more