To know more information or make a referral to ESH Home Health or Hospice, please email us at eshhomehealthandhospice@esmc.org
Excelsior Springs Hospital Home Health provides home health care services in Missouri and specifically for patients in Clay, Ray, Clinton, and Caldwell counties. Committed to providing optimal in-home care to nearby communities, our cost-effective and high-quality services assist our referral partners in lowering their costs and improving quality measures in various CMS programs.
Here are 3 important considerations while referring patients to Home Health:
1) How Soon is care Initiated from Time of referral
Timely initiation of care is when patients leaving a healthcare facility receive prompt and appropriate care based on their discharge status. For example, patients discharged from Hospital with an HHA status should receive immediate home care since any delay in timely care could further worsen the patient’s condition.
How often does the ESH home health team begin its patient care in a timely manner?
Analysis by Dexur, a leading healthcare data & research service, based on claims data and CMS Measures shows that ESH’s home health team began their patient care in a timely manner 98.6% of the time, which is better than the National and State Home Health average of 95.7% and 94.5% respectively.
Why is this important?
Appropriate Initiation of care from the time of referral is a significant quality measure that decides the quality of patient care Star Rating for Home Health Agency. It can help patients, Physicians, and Hospitals quickly identify quality differences and make use of the information when selecting a healthcare provider. Timely care is also an important factor in reducing Hospital readmissions which is an Important measure in CMS programs and could help Hospitals with Cost and Quality programs like Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program (HRRP), Value Based Purchasing (VBP), BPCI-A (Bundled Payments for Care Improvement), CMS Star Rating.
Dexur analyzed Medicare claims data for two different Hospitals from Liberty and North Kansas regions in Missouri State. For the Hospital located in Liberty, Missouri, patients who were discharged to Home but failed to receive care within five days had a readmission rate of 25.39%, much higher than those who received care within 48 hours (Readmission rate of (18.15%). The hospital in North Kansas City showed similar results where patients getting home care within 48 hours had a reduced readmission rate of 14.47% compared to those who didn’t (Readmission Rate (24.36%) within 5 days.
The analysis presented above coupled with ESH Home Health’s performance in Timely Initiation of Care shows how referral to ESH Home Health would help Hospitals reduce Rehospitalization, minimize their Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary (MSPB) costs and also improve value outcomes in CMS quality programs like Value-Based Purchasing (VBP), HRRP and CMS Star Rating.
2) Home Health Costs Compared to Skilled Nursing Facility (SNF Costs)
Hospitals should ensure that patients discharged from their facilities receive proper Home Health care. An appropriate HHA Discharge should be provided to a patient whose condition can be improved with home care services.
Home Health Vs SNF Costs
Here’s an analysis done by Dexur on the top referral partners from Clay and Ray counties for our Home Health services. A look into the discharges and cost incurred for their Post Acute Care services of the Hospital shows the following:
The cost of care at ESH Home Health facility is much lesser compared to the SNF facilities referred by Hospitals in the region. This analysis suggests that appropriate HHA discharges to ESH Home Health facility would minimize Hospital’s Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary (MSPB) costs, which has a 25% weightage in CMS’s Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program and help lower total costs of care for BPCI-A programs.
3) Home Health Costs Compared to Other Agencies
Why is cost an important factor in choosing Home Health? A high Home Health discharge cost can increase the Medicare Spending Per Beneficiary (MSPB) cost of a Hospital, which is a significant factor in the Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) program. MSPB is the sole metric in the Efficiency and Cost Reduction domain that contributes to 25% of the overall VBP score. An MSPB episode tracks down a patient’s journey from 3 days prior to hospital admission to 30 days post discharge.
If a patient is discharged to an HHA after their inpatient stay within 30 days, the Home Health cost adds up to and increases the MSPB costs, thus negatively affecting the VBP adjustment factor of the hospital.
The best way a hospital can manage this cost and improve VBP score is by identifying the Home Health Agency that provides the best quality of care at the least cost. Cost and Quality insights from Dexur shows how ESH Home Health is more efficient in managing the 1st interaction costs, episode costs, and quality measures than other Home Health Agencies in the region.
The best-in-class care provided by ESH Home Health comes with one of the lowest costs of care in the region. Dexur performed an in-depth analysis on the total cost of care for several Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) over a 90-day post-hospitalization discharge period and found that ESH Home Health provides one of the most cost-effective home care services. For example, for Simple Pneumonia and Pleurisy (DRG 193/194), ESH Home Health has an average episode cost of $2,086, one of the lowest care costs for the condition among all the facilities in the region.
Here is a county wise cost of care comparison for various Home Health facilities in the Missouri state:
- Clay County:
2. Ray County:
3. Clinton County:
4. Caldwell County:
The analyses presented above show how ESH Home Health is one of the most enticing referral options for Physicians and Hospitals in the region providing state-of-the-art care to the patients seeking quality and affordable Hospice services.