Assisted-living centers could be patient sources
Hospital proposes CORF in senior housing
A relationship with assisted-living facilities can be positive for rehabilitation providers, says David Mungenast, president and chief executive officer of Southwest Rehabilitation Hospital in Battle Creek, MI, and a principal of CHI Consult-ing, a health care consulting firm in Ann Arbor, MI. Traditionally, assisted- and congregate-living facilities are limited in the health care interventions they are able or willing to provide. This creates opportunities for health care providers who are willing to deliver on-site services, Mungenast says. (For more on providing home health services in assisted-living centers, see story, p. 50.)
There's an opportunity to expand your serv-ices into the community without capital expenditures, while gaining the prospects of becoming the provider-of-choice for the residents who no longer have to travel for rehab services.
Mungenast's hospital hopes to set up a Compre-hensive Outpatient Rehabilitation Facility (CORF) to serve residents of a proposed assisted-living center and the surrounding community. Its proposal calls for the developer of the assisted-living center to set aside space for health care services. If it wins the contract, Southwest Rehab would rent the space, provide staff, and manage the health care services.
In addition to comprehensive rehab services on site, Southwest staff are considering offering exercise classes, nursing education, health maintenance activities, and other programs to meet the health care needs of the elderly.
"From our perspective, it allows us to continue to expand the services we provide to the elderly community. From a purely business perspective, it is a new business line in a setting where we automatically become the provider of choice," Mungenast says.
Assisted-living centers provide private rooms, housekeeping, dietary services, transportation for medical care, and other support for senior citizens who are unable to live independently.
A Battle Creek committee of community leaders and health care providers also has proposed developing a congregate living center that would provide meals and a few services for more independent senior citizens. As a committee member, Mungenast has persuaded the citizen's group to provide more health care services than initially planned. (For more on the committee, see story, p. 50.)
In the past, assisted-living centers haven't provided much health care, but Mungenast sees them as a business opportunity for rehab and other health care providers. He advises clients not to overlook the opportunity to develop the same kinds of partnerships with assisted-living centers they have developed with skilled nursing facilities. The arrangement can be of mutual benefit to both residents and rehab providers. "One of the great advantages of assisted-living and congregate-living arrangements is that they give us a venue to help a large population with health maintenance issues. It's difficult to do this when you have to bring in individual people scattered throughout the community," he says.
Make the numbers work
The hospital's classes at the local senior citizens' center don't always attract the number of people needed to make it worthwhile to bring staff to the site, Mungenast says. "When only four or five people show up, it's not a financially feasible project. With a ready-made audience, it's easier to set up classes and other services."
On-site rehab providers also have an advantage in becoming the provider of choice for residents. "If your people are on site and interacting on a daily basis, when patients have an injury or illness, you have an advantage in providing the therapy services they need," Mungenast says.
The incentive to use Southwest Rehab's services would be even more powerful because the elderly residents would not have to travel to an outpatient facility across town. "As an outpatient provider, we recognize that the biggest obstacle elderly patients have is transportation. Some don't come for follow-up services because transportation is such a struggle," he says.
Mungenast anticipates that the CORF would serve as a satellite facility for the hospital, serving other community populations as well as the residents of the assisted-living centers. It's an opportunity for Southwest Rehab to set up an off- campus facility without capital expenditures in an area more accessible than the outpatient program at the hospital.
[For more information, contact David Mungenast at (616) 965-3206.]
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