WARNING: Paradigm Shift Ahead

In light of the passage last Thursday by the Senate of S. 2553, the Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014, I thought I would re-share this post from July. 

If you are responsible for leading a post-acute/long-term care organization, I believe you should take note of two recent regulatory and legislative initiatives that provide a rather clear vision of where the post-acute/long-term care industry is headed – and it’s going to be disruptive to traditional thinking (if you want to survive).

ITEM 1: VBP in Home Healthcare
Earlier this week, CMS issued propose rule, CMS-1611–P, which proposed to update Medicare’s Home Health Prospective Payment System resulting in an over all 2.5% reduction in rates when consideration is given to rebasing adjustments and sequestration. Importantly, included with that rule was a solicitation of comments regarding a home healthcare value-based purchasing (HHVBP) model.

Section 3006(b)(1) of the Affordable Care Act directed the HHS Secretary to develop a plan for implementation of a HHVPB program for home health agencies and to issue an associated report to Congress. Key concepts of that report included building upon existing measurement tools and processes, the alignment with other Medicare programs and tying payment to performance.

As currently contemplated, beginning with CY 2016 in five to eight states participating in an initial demonstration, average Medicare payments would be increased or decreased in a rage of 5% to 8% based on quality performance as measured by both achievement and improvement across multiple quality measures. The belief is these incentives/disincentives would encourage better quality via improved planning, coordination, and management of care.

ITEM 2: Broad Spectrum Reform Targeted
Last week, leaders of the Senate Finance and House Ways and Means committees introduced bipartisan legislation (H.R. 4994, S. 2553) that would have the type of disruptive influence that Clayton Christiansen has researched and explained leads to disruptive innovation. Being referred to as The Improving Medicare Post-Acute Care Transformation Act of 2014 (or, IMPACT Act of 2014), it would require data gathering and reporting standardization across different types of PA/LTC settings to facilitate better comparisons of quality and resource utilization among those settings and to improve hospital and post-acute care discharge planning.

The data collected and analyses completed would then be used to develop new payment system(s) that could be site-neutral and reflect various forms of bundling and/or at-risk capitation. Anticipated quality measures include functional status, skin integrity, medication reconciliation, major falls and patient preference. If enacted, SNFs, IRFs and LTACs would begin reporting some of these measures as early as October of 2016, with confidential feedback sent the following year and public reporting of the measures occurring in 2018.

Taken together, these two initiatives – even if neither is ultimately implemented – reflect the long anticipated but now swiftly emerging paradigm shift away from fee for service in the PA/LTC industry. They also reflect the migration toward a view of PA/LTC that encompasses the patient’s overall and entire experience after an acute care stay. Owning only a piece of the puzzle, without being able to seamlessly and economically integrate with healthcare providers holding the other pieces, will not represent a sustainable business model.

To reinforce this, simply look at the strategy of Kindred Healthcare. Writing in Forbes Magazine recently, colleague Howard Gleckman noted that,

“as recently as 2010, half of Kindred’s business was generated by its skilled nursing facilities. This year, only one-fifth of its revenues will come from its nursing and rehab centers. In a major strategic shift, Kindred is betting the company on in-home care, hospice, care management, and fully integrated care services.” [my emphasis added]

Ironically, PACE models – whose genesis dates back to the early 70s – are well ahead of the curve in successfully providing comprehensive, integrated services and care, though their positioning platform has primarily been a means of serving low income seniors. That road hasn’t been easy, as development and execution is fraught with financial, operational, clinical and regulatory challenges. But the overall long-term programmatic success demonstrates the value created from integrated care delivery under a fully capitated payment model (as in, see above).

So if you’re one of those individuals I referenced at the top of this post, what I would do if I were you is spend some time understanding the PACE model – and a crash course in organizational change management might not hurt either.

Cheers – and Happy Independence Day!!
  ~ Sparky