Three Ways To Prepare Your Home Care Agency for Value-Based Purchasing Models

Value-based purchasing has pierced the home health care veil, and home care providers should be ready for those changes to affect their services and reimbursement. Home care has not yet been subject to value-based purchasing models of reimbursement, a system that would reimburse for care based on the quality of care provided to patients as well as their outcomes. In this article, we will go over tips that address how you can prepare your staff for these changes before they are required of you.

1.   Create care plans with a linear trajectory of care that ends with progress

When you are creating care plans, you might be documenting and tracking what chores need to be done if the client lives in an apartment or house, or where the client needs to go for an appointment. What about the progress that the client is making? While you are putting care plans together, ask the client what their goals are. Do they want to be able to go golfing again? Do they want to get back into tending to their garden?

Talk to their family members and other caregivers. What does progress look like for them? What are their hopes with your team coming in? Learn what they want to happen as a result of your services.

Once you have these outlined, work toward achieving those goals. Have your caregivers document progress in their visit notes. Use these outcomes as case studies to demonstrate how your clients improve under your care.

2.   Implement a fall and readmission program

Readmissions are costly medical events that are preventable through proper caregiver education and training. Falls are costly medical events as well, that are also preventable through proper training. According to the CDC, in adults 65 and older, non-fatal falls cost $50 billion each year. One of the leading causes of hospital readmissions is sepsis. You have the ability to limit and prevent these events from happening to your clients through thorough education and training for your caregivers.

Fall prevention programs come in a variety of different forms:

• Balance training
• Posture exercises
• Clearing hallways and floors of tripping hazards
• Regular walking and physical activity

Readmission training programs also come in a few different formats:

• Taking thorough notes during hospitalizations
• Ask questions
• Have the doctor re-evaluate any medications that the client is taking
• Install proper durable medical equipment and devices necessary
• If you have clients that do not understand English fluently, make sure they are accompanied by a caregiver or family member that can advocate and translate for them

These are a few options for both programs, let us know in the comments section if you have a system that works well for you and your clients.

3.   Commit to continuous learning

Healthcare changes so quickly. Before you are subjected to value-based purchasing models, set aside time each day to read one news article or research study on a new intervention or program dedicated to a facet of care that affects your client population. See if you can become involved in research studies, or see if your clients can get involved in a new clinical trial to improve their condition. Be a pioneer in the field, daring to try new things and be different.

The beauty of working in healthcare is that there is always something to be learned. By demonstrating that you are committed to learning, your clients will take notice. You have their best interests at heart, and you need to take some time every day to reaffirm that belief.

VBP is not set in stone for home care, but it can’t hurt to be ready

Epictetus once said, “Tentative efforts lead to tentative outcomes.” Your KPIs can’t improve if you don’t do anything to jumpstart that improvement.

Make a commitment today to your caregivers and your clients that you will find ways to provide better care. Your clients are relying on you to help them achieve progress, but you can’t measure progress if you don’t know what that means to them. Put a little more time into creating your care plans to create a linear point A to point B for each of your clients. Have your caregivers document where they are along in that line from A to B.

Your caregivers will take pride in what they do when they see that their clients are improving in condition and working toward achieving their own goals. Get started on your VBP plan today!

Helpful links:

Cost of older Adult Falls – CDC

Leading causes of hospital readmission and the cost