NewsLine - November 2012 - (Page 16)

continued from previous page The Roles Hospice Can Play Hospice providers can play various roles in the ACO, including: • Providing care for the terminally ill • Providing care for the highestacuity patients, without regard to terminal diagnosis • Reducing costs by keeping high-need patients in the most economical venue of care. The value hospice brings to the ACO relationship include: • Reduction in hospital readmissions • Care coordination across the continuum • Reduction in costs for postacute episodes • Reduced emergency room visits and hospitalizations • Shared payment risk based on outcomes • Decreased in-patient hospital mortality rates • End-of-life care expertise • Palliative care expertise. A hospice’s participation in the ACO can contribute significantly to the alleviation of patient and family suffering and, at the same time, ease some of the ACO’s challenges, including readmissions and length of stay. As well, with appropriate recognition and support, the emerging field of palliative care will relieve symptoms, including physical and emotional pain; improve patient– professional communication and decision-making; and coordinate care across the spectrum of health care settings. As you can see, hospice and palliative care providers can offer a very attractive range of benefits to the ACO and its patients. And as we already mentioned, they, in turn, will gain the ability to broaden their reach within the community. It can clearly be a win-win situation. become the logical extension of the care it provides to patients. Disease management programs are a good example. Those that reduce hospital readmissions would be invaluable to ACOs, such as a CHF program that focuses on reducing the readmission rates of that population. Other examples are using adult learning techniques for better patient and family education; closer collaboration with case managers to get patients home faster; and working with the emergency room department to implement processes that will prevent readmissions. What to Do Today First, Recognize There May Be Risks A key consideration for participation in an ACO will be the risk assumed by the provider. For hospices, this becomes an entirely new paradigm. In the current fee-for-service (FFS) payment environment, incentives to providers are not aligned with the goal of payers to manage costs, or with the goals of patients to receive high-quality, patient-centered care. Our silo-based payment system encourages inefficiency Taking Advantage of the Opportunity If you can prove to your local ACO that your hospice can provide care coordination to its sickest patients while decreasing hospital lengths of stay, admissions/readmissions and infections, you will be providing the obvious solution to the ACO’s biggest challenges. (As we already know, reimbursement rates for hospitals are being tied to readmissions.) The eventual goal, of course, is to collaborate so well with the ACO that your services 16 NewsLine

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of NewsLine - November 2012

NewsLine - November 2012
WHV Partners Give Thanks
A Message From Don
Free Distance-learning Sessions on Serving Veterans
ACOs Today: Are You Ready?
AchieveLinks: Introducing a Rewards Program (display ad)
Simione: Solving Your Hospice Challenges (display ad)
In the Continuum: KCHPC
The Voice of NCHPP
How a Veteran’s Experience Can Inform Bereavement Practice
Free Bereavement Section Activities
Now Live: eHospice
A Free Tool to Help Evaluate Your Service to Veterans
Member News and Notes
CTC Sponsors (display ad)
Compliance Tip
2013 MLC Plenary Speakers (display ad)
Videos Worth Watching
News From FHSSA

NewsLine - November 2012