Crains New York - April 1, 2013 - (Page 13)

H E A LT H C A R E REPORT INSIDE The Lists Top-paid hospital executives and employees PAGE 16 ‘We have to address how to keep people out of hospitals’ —John Collura, SVP and CFO, Continuum Health Partners, Page 14 Avoiding the high cost of readmits With new penalties in force, hospitals find ways to keep ex-patients healthy BY GALE SCOTT Every day, patients are readmitted to hospitals as a result of preventable missteps that take place soon after being discharged. Two real-life examples from the annals of New York hospitals illustrate the challenge: An 85year-old patient’s wife decides that taking medicine “with food” means mixing it with mashed potatoes. The patient won’t eat them. Soon he’s back in the hospital that only days earlier had discharged him. Or an elderly woman with heart disease is told before she leaves the hospital to “watch” her fluids, which she interprets to mean not to drink water.Soon,she too is back in a health care facility, dehydratAMOUNT of ed, hooked forfeiture NYS up to an IV. facilities face Historiunder the feds’ cally, health Hospital Readmissions care organReduction Program izations have not had a financial reason to care about patients after sending them home. After all, they make money when patients stay, not when they leave their facilities. But those days are ending, with the result that hospitals are now focused on getting patients the care they “There has been signeed after they leave. THE ROAD TO nificant difficulty for fiPatients who renancially challenged inturn as “avoidable stitutions in gaining readmissions” now access to capital to retool cost hospitals monfor federal reform,” said ey. Under a federal Kenneth Raske,president reform program that of the Greater New York started in October, Hospital Association, a more than 2,200 hospital trade group. “We are now fachospitals nationwide will forfeit a ing a very severe shortage of funds.” total of $280 million in Medicare Hospitals once relied on tax-free funds for having too many pabonds, but the state, already on the tients readmitted. New York hoshook for millions of dollars in hospipitals face more than $38 million tal debt, isn’t looking to take on more. in docked pay. matt roussel $38M Hospitals face cash crunch BY BARBARA BENSON Money is in short supply at many New York hospitals. But cash is what they need now more than ever in order to implement Obamacare. That has created a dilemma with no easy solution, especially after leg- islation to infuse New York health care with private capital failed to make it into the state budget lawmakers were expected to pass last week. The Affordable Care Act rewrites the rules for how hospitals do business. It asks them to overhaul their operations. As a result, they are morphing from bricks-and-mortar structures that take care of the sick to providers who keep patients out of hospitals by improving primary care. They are also forming huge networks that will be reimbursed very differently by Medicare, Medicaid and commercial insurers. RED ALERT Hospitals’ long-term debt per licensed bed, 2009: $238K HEALTH REFORM: HOSPITALS ᮢ Facilities need money for Obamacare, but NY remains closed to private capital $141K NYS median NYC median Source: Brooklyn Medicaid Redesign Team Health Systems Redesign Work Group See MONEY CRUNCH on Page 14 See EX-PATIENTS on Page 14 April 1, 2013 | Crain’s New York Business | 13

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Crains New York - April 1, 2013

IN THE BOROUGHS
IN THE MARKETS
THE INSIDER
BUSINESS PEOPLE
OPINION
BOB PREVIDI
GREG DAVID
REAL ESTATE DEALS
HEALTH CARE REPORT
CLASSIFIEDS
SMALL BUSINESS
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
SOURCE LUNCH
OUT AND ABOUT
SNAPS

Crains New York - April 1, 2013