“As many more new orthopedic bundles will soon be coming on the market under CMS value-based payments this April, post-acute care providers need to be talking with the hospitals – or bundle initiators or leads – in the planning stage, and not wait to be the downstream vendors with lots of imposed expectations but no part in the planning (or participation in the risk)”.

“The established benchmark for rehabbing patients participating in the bundles for this practice were between 5 and 7 days for knees, and between 7 and 10 days for hips.  Patients who need more time for a variety of reasons have a care plan and longer length-of-stay which reflects their greater complexities, and other factors; however, the outliers should be few enough so as not to impact the average”.

“Right now, post-acute care is a critical part of reducing costs and meeting quality standards, and instead of participating in the value proposition (better revenue/profit sharing) post-acute providers only participate in greater expense”.

“Post-acute care providers need to be at the table as bundles are designed, so that all parties in the continuum understand each-others’ worlds, incentives, limitations”.

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Pre-admission systems must be able to predict therapy minutes for each episode and be willing to take risk for length of stay and comorbidity. The skilled nursing component also has to be forecast for each bundle using some form of skilled care models.

To even get to the table with the discharging hospitals or LTCH’s the providers need to have an approved costing and pricing system. The Caregiver Outcome Manager is the only episodic cost accounting system in the market.

Get out front of your competition get with me for a demo and a plan. See www.episodicpricecost.com for details.  Jerry Rhoads