Access Companies

It looks as though the pandemic will be around for quite some time. Skilled nursing facilities have been forced to rethink how they are providing care. Many are finding they must embrace the change in order to move forward and focus on strategic goals. For more on this, please see the article below. 

A recent analysis found a 14% increase in the number of patients being discharged home from skilled nursing facilities. It’s worth noting that this only equates to around one person per month transitioning to the home. Most often, these were patients who had stayed at the nursing home for at least 100 days.

The article below encourages SNFs to better communicate with home health providers when transitioning services. Readmission rates could be affected if the transition isn’t scheduled within 48 hours of discharge. The patients planning to go home may bounce back to the hospital.

For more on this, please see the below.

In order to make more informed decisions and maximize financial gains, providers must embrace data utilization to succeed in the current market.

Access Advantage offers back-office support and troubleshooting for payer operations, contracting, renegotiations, and revenue cycle management. We offer a specialized performance profiling report, our Map to Market (M2M). Let us know if your facility would like to request this today.

For more on this, please also see the article below.

Medicare Part A covers a skilled nursing facility stay only if the individual was admitted for three days at the hospital as opposed to under observation, which is considered outpatient.

This article eloquently explains the difference between being admitted to a hospital versus under observation, what has changed during the pandemic, and what that means with regards to Medicare coverage of a skilled nursing stay.

Many SNFs are taking on higher acuity patients and embracing on-site dialysis post-COVID.

This article, showcasing an on-site dialysis company, looks into the growing need for this service.

Communication, quality metrics and the ability to take on high-acuity patients are a few things that hospitals are most interested in when deciding which skilled nursing facility to discharge patients.

For more on what hospitals are looking for, please see the article below.

Skilled nursing facilities have seen an increase in occupancy this year, leading many to wonder if this means stabilization post-COVID. Several states have shown an occupancy increase of more than 5%.

For more on this, with a look into which states are showing the biggest increase, please see the article below.

While SNFs might fear home care as direct competition, some think it should be viewed as a partner in the spectrum of care. With hospitals, skilled facilities and home care all performing in silos, current development in home-based care is highlighting opportunities to improve transitions from one space to the next.

For more on this, see the article below.

Experts believe that skilled nursing facilities may see their occupancy levels reach pre-pandemic levels by the first quarter of 2022.

For more on this, please see the article below.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has passed Medicare-certified providers more than $100 billion under the Accelerated and Advance Payments (AAP) program. Under the terms of this program, CMS plans to keep 25% of a given facility’s Medicare payments for the first 11 months of the recoupment period, starting one year from the date of the first receipt.

To learn more about this please see the article below.