Bundled Payments for Post-Acute Care: Four Critical Paths To Success Post-Acute Care Payment Bundles: Catalyst for Clinical Redesign, Improved Care Transitions

Post-Acute Care Payment Bundles:
Catalyst for Clinical Redesign, Improved Care Transitions

Brooks Rehabilitation jumped at the opportunity to participate in CMS' Bundled Payments for Care Improvement (BPCI) program to be at the forefront of learning more about healthcare payment reform, said Debbie Reber, MHS, OTR, vice president of clinical services, Brooks Rehabilitation. We saw it as an opportunity for post-acute care providers to help make some of the healthcare policy changes related to the future of healthcare reimbursement. We also really want it to serve as a catalyst for our business to begin working better as a system of care, Ms. Reber explained during last month's webinar, Bundled Payments for Post-Acute Care: Four Critical Paths To Success, a Healthcare Intelligence Network webinar now available for replay.

Debbie Reber

"Our move toward bundled payments was a great opportunity to improve our care transitions, our continuum," said Reber. "The other huge opportunity is to experiment with clinical redesign. As we approached bundle pay, we approached it with 'we have a blank slate. We can redesign the care to look and feel however we want it to be. If we were doing things all over again, what are the things or the gaps or cracks to the clinical care that we could really improve upon?'"

"We knew that we wanted to have a strong voice regarding future policy and payment reform changes. We really wanted to show that we were sophisticated enough to take risk and play a primary role with that continuum of care," she added.

Brooks is serving under CMS' Model 3, in which it selects from a list of DRGs. It started in October 2013 with fractures, hip and knee replacements as well as hip and knee revisions.

Brooks added congestive heart failure, non-cervical and cervical fusions and back and neck surgery bundles this past April.

"All of our bundles are for an episode length of 60 days with the only exception to that being congestive heart failure. We did heart failure for 30 days just due to the tremendous risk of managing those cases and to decrease our risk overall with that population," Reber explained.

Brooks begins its process when the patient leaves the acute care facility.

"We are then responsible for all non-hospice Part A and B services, including physician visits, DME, medications, post-acute therapy or rehab services, as well as any readmission," she said. Of particular note is that the readmissions are not just related to the acute episodes that we are seeing them for...it's for any reason that the patient would be readmitted.

Understanding what those readmission reasons are is huge to our success, Reber explained. For example, on the orthopedic side, even though the patients have just been seen for an orthopedic surgery, the primary reason for readmission is predominantly around cardiac issues or pulmonary issues that are more likely due to prior comorbidities. It's really just managing those issues more.

Brooks has achieved an overall savings of about 19 percent over its historic spend and has decreased its readmission rate to about 15 percent across the 60-day time frame within this program. And, has also seen increases in patient functional improvement and patient satisfaction rates.

During the webinar, Reber walked participants through the four domains that have been critical to its success in the BPCI program, including: using standardized assessments across care settings; patient and caregiver engagement; the in-house developed Care Compass Tool, which includes a longitudinal care plan; and enhancing the role of the care navigator.

In case you missed this webinar, you still have a chance to watch this highly-rated program.

Register to view the conference today or order your training DVD or CD:
http://store.hin.com/product.asp?itemid=5062

You can "attend" this program right in your office and learn how Brooks operationalized its four BPCI domains across its continuum of care; developed its in-house, electronic tracking tool, the Brooks Care Compass, a data repository that pulls from electronic medical records to provide clinicians and care navigators the data they need to manage episodes of care; addressed challenges in the implementation process, including the need for continuous training, developing a mechanism for staff feedback and defining the roles of nurse navigators and non-nurse navigators in the program; and is leveraging its experience with BPCI for additional revenue opportunities.

It's so convenient! Invite your staff members to watch the conference. We will send you a DVD or CD-ROM of the conference proceedings or a link to our web site with a username and password. You can log in and view the program right from your computer — any time of the day or night, whenever convenient for you and your colleagues — and benefit from the archived recording of the conference, including the Q&A period.

You'll get to listen to the question and answer session to hear: where the greatest risk of readmission occurs for Brooks' patients; more details on the longitudinal care plan tool; which patient engagement tools Brooks' utilizes; how Brooks addressed the challenge of role delineation between care navigators and case managers; insight on identifying patients eligible for the bundled payment; how to communicate and coordinate with the patient's PCP, post-discharge, for a safe transition to home; and how Brooks manages patients that transition to/from a non-Brooks' facility.

To register for the on-demand re-broadcast, download an .MP3 file or order the training DVD or CD-ROM of Bundled Payments for Post-Acute Care: Four Critical Paths To Success, please visit:
http://store.hin.com/product.asp?itemid=5062

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