Pekin Hospital latest to look at closing its skilled nursing unit

With Pekin Hospital seeking a states capitulation to tighten a learned nursing facility, Proctor Hospital could shortly be a usually one of a areas four major hospitals with a special section for patients who need a longer-than-typical stay.A hospitals devise to tighten a learned nursing section isnt unusual these days. But, taken with a hundreds of such units that have closed around a country, a a case investigate in how changes as well as reductions in Medicare reimbursements control what hospitals offer or dont offer.This is an issue of inhabitant interest, says R. Tamara Konetzka, an join forces with professor of health policy as well as economics during a University of Chicago. People have been concerned about this all over a country.Increasingly, patients have been withdrawal hospitals as well as continuing short-term, post-hospital caring in learned nursing units during nursing homes or, with a assistance of home healthcare programs, in their own homes.When it comes to closing hospital-based learned nursing units, Konetzka says, a large subject is, Is it great for patients? Theres no definitive answer, though it is clear that hospital-based units have been more expensive to operate. Pekin Hospital is successful overall, but a learned nursing section has lost tighten to $5 million over a past three years, according to Jo Ellen Patterson, vice president of studious caring services. The sanatorium is licensed for 125 beds, including a 27-bed learned nursing unit. On average, a section operated with about nine patients a day during 2011.Average length of stay?Nine to ten days. Combined with decreases in Medicare payment rates, Patterson says, It hasnt been price effective to continue using a unit.A growing trendMore than 1,000, or about a third of all such hospital-based units, have closed since a 1990s. Methodist Medical Center closed a section in 2006. OSF Saint Francis Medical Center never had one inside of a hospital. Instead, OSF Healthcare has offered short- as well as long-term learned caring during OSF St. Clare since 1971.Technically, a learned nursing facility is a nursing home inside of a hospital. The Centers for Medicare as well as Medicaid Services (CMS) sets Medicare payment rates for them much as if they were nursing homes. For example, patients who need short-term therapies or wound caring after operation have been expelled from a hospitals acute care, or in-patient, section as well as transferred to a learned caring unit.Both Pekin as well as Proctor officials contend most of a patients in their learned caring units need physical or occupational therapy after orthopedic surgery.The direction toward hospital-based learned nursing comforts began in a 1980s after CMS restructured Medicare reimbursements for hospitals, from fee-for-service to one lump sum, for patients in acute-care units. The fee-for-service make up assured sanatorium profits, according to Konetzka, but a government longed for to control costs. Hospitals began releasing patients quicker as well as sicker, Konetzka says, since they no longer had a monetary incentive to keep patients any longer than necessary. The faster they expelled a patient, a more money they made.In that environment, hospitals satisfied if they non-stop learned nursing facilities, they could keep patients hospitalized longer, plus get a higher fee-for-service reimbursements from Medicare, formed upon learned nursing units technical definition as a nursing home. More than 2,500 hospitals non-stop learned nursing units. When Pekin non-stop a section in 1993, Patterson says, Medicare was encouraging hospitals to open learned nursing comforts by offering great reimbursements. From Medicares standpoint, it was a cost-saving measure since a hospitals learned nursing facility was less costly than an acute care, or in-patient, unit. For a while, it seemed like a win-win situation.This was probably great for patients; they could continue to get caring in a hospital, Konetzka says. And it was always great for hospitals.But by a late 1990s, Medicares costs for hospital-based learned nursing comforts were one of a fastest growing expenditures. CMS stepped in again, with a new payment system for hospital-based learned nursing facilities, just as it had done for acute-care units a decade earlier. Hospitals would be paid formed upon a set price per day rather than reimbursed upon a fee-for-service basis. Additionally, CMS has steadily cut payment rates across a board, most recently in October. Hospital-based learned nursing comforts have been closing ever since. From 2003 to 2009, a sum number dropped 36 percent to 930. Looking to a futureProctor has no plans to tighten a unit.A lot of patients prefer to come to us primarily since of a availability of a learned nursing unit, says Proctor spokesman Steve Wilson.Though licensed for 29 beds, Proctor operates usually 20 in a learned nursing unit. Last year, a annual occupancy rate was 66 percent with an average length of stay of 8.2 days.In Pekin, officials sent out more than 50 letters to nursing homes with learned caring units inside of a 45-minute drive of a hospital. Based upon a response, Patterson believes potential future patients will have alternatives if Pekins section closes.The sanatorium does not devise to lay off any of a 23 employees, including 15 full-time employees, who work in a unit. They will be moved to other positions inside of a hospital.Hospital officials could know by mid-July if a Illinois Health Facilities as well as Services Review Board approves their application to tighten a unit. Then, theyd have to give 30-day notices to a Illinois Department of Public Health as well as any patients upon a section during that time.Deciding to tighten a section was not easy, Patterson said. We longed for to do everything we could to make it successful.If Pekin wins a state boards approval, a devise is to turn a section into private rooms, which would push private bedrooms from 30 percent to 80 percent of a hospitals sum rooms.For Konetzka, it still goes back to money, privately a tax dollars that account Medicare payments. If hospital-based learned nursing comforts have been more expensive for no great reason, maybe a a great thing for them to close, she says. But we have to tread carefully as well as look during what happens with patients. Thats a part we just dont know.Pam Adams can be reachedat 686-3245 or padams@pjstar.com.Powered By iWebRSS.co.cc

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