HHH seminar roundup: Conference goers learn about regulations, trends
HHH seminar roundup: Conference goers learn about regulations, trends
State of the industry highlighted
Last month in Chicago, home health care professionals from around the country gathered to discuss issues relevant to the industry. However, unlike other home health conferences, this full-day seminar series focused on the state of the hospital home health care industry.
Sponsored by the Center for Hospital Homecare Management in Memphis and Hospital Home Health, attendees were given an in-depth look at the state of the union for hospital-affiliated home care agencies. Perhaps one of the day’s most striking features, notes Dan Lerman, MHSA, president and founder of the Center for Hospital Homecare Management, was the number of attendees. "It was extremely well received." About 70 people from more than 20 states were present.
"Things went terrifically. We got excellent evaluations and people were pleased with the format," he adds. "They seemed to like the focus on hospital home care and that multiple home care product and service lines were addressed. We covered not only Medicare-certified services but private-duty services and infusion. [Attendees] liked the home care package being addressed and the sensitivity and frankness of the faculty who participated."
The success of the hospital home care focus backs up Lerman’s theory that there is a strong interest in this type of programming. "Typically, there is only one program during the year on a national basis that is devoted exclusively to hospital home care. So what we did was really unique."
The conference, says Lerman, showed that people want to be updated on the business trends in the marketplace as well as regulations, especially those that are going to be implemented on Oct. 1, 2000, for Medicare-certified hospital home health agencies.
"They wanted to learn linkages between Medicare-certified home care agencies and equipment suppliers," he explains. "They wanted to learn appropriate ways in which to refer and contract with vendors. They were really looking to understand the business dynamics and pressures that providers are working under with respect to Medicare participation and durable medical equipment reimbursement strategies."
Among the conference’s most important messages, says Lerman, were:
• Medicare home health prospective payment system (PPS).
"It’s time to start getting your act together. With respect to the new rules, you need to do your homework at your own hospital by taking a snapshot of how things work and what impact PPS will have." Attendees were urged to take that snapshot look a bit further and do a more in-depth analysis. The refrain, notes Lerman, was that agencies shouldn’t wait until July 1 to start work. "It’s imperative that all the preliminary work is done in the next few months so that you’re not behind the eight ball when the rules hit in October."
• Strategic management.
Perhaps one of the most important lessons someone could learn is that to run a successful agency, "you must have a business approach," says Lerman. "You want to take a hard look at both the internal and external growth of your agency. By that I mean you want to be able to grow internally with new programs and through referral bases and you want to be able to grow externally as far as offering new services, through acquisitions and strategic partnerships, and of course, cost control.
"You need to take an extremely close look at your agency’s cost structure so that it can support the reimbursement fee schedule and that you have a strong accounts-receivable process," he says. Equally as important, he continues, is to make certain that as an agency you are able to increase unit price volume to keep pace with pricing pressures and that you are in a position to renegotiate or eliminate highly unprofitable managed care contracts.
"You want to make sure you invest appropriately in your infrastructure and system information needs and avoid segments of the business in which you aren’t an expert," Lerman says. "This will help you maintain your support within the physician and clinical communities and allow you to provide quality service and responsiveness."
The conference was so successful, says Lerman, that he’s looking to do more. "There certainly appears to be a strong interest in hospital home care programming, based on the feedback we’re getting. We’d love to do more programs like this. We’re not sure where we’ll hold them, but by all means, we’ll have more."
• Dan Lerman, MHSA, President and Founder, Center for Homecare Management, 111 S. Highland St., Suite 286, Memphis, TN 38111. Telephone: (800) 266-3583.
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