The Caregiver Act and AARP’s CARE Act Aim to Reduce Readmissions
Hospitals nationwide have gone to great lengths in an effort to reduce readmissions and improve patient quality. However, despite these concerted efforts, hospitals continue to incur fines from Medicare for excessive rates of patient readmissions, which are projected to total more than $428 million. Even worse, readmissions cost patients a collective $17 billion.
Eric Heil, RightCare
However, these numbers and rates are starting to drop thanks to new tools and programs, such as the Delivery System Reform Incentive Payment (DSRIP) Program. We’re also seeing new legislation being introduced in several states aimed at reducing readmissions by ensuring hospitals and their patients communicate better after they are discharged.
The Caregiver Act and AARP’s model state bill, called the Caregiver Advise, Record, Enable (CARE) Act, are examples of legislation currently being discussed in several states. Together, they have the potential to prevent hundreds of thousands of unnecessary hospital readmissions. Oklahoma was the first in the nation to pass legislation back in November 2014 and New Jersey followed suit later the same month.
The new laws would require hospitals to work directly with a patient’s caregiver (usually a family member) to ensure that necessary preparations are in place for the patient to successfully recover at home after being discharged. This process includes providing discharged patients and their caregivers with a clear path to follow for addressing medication, nutrition and living needs in-home.
To achieve this level of customized, high quality care, technology is essential to streamline the care coordination process and support the unique needs of patients. RightCare, a growing medical technology company, has an end-to-end software solution designed to assess patient risk and needs at the time of admission, ensure the most appropriate post-acute care plan is offered, and seamlessly transition patient information to post-acute care providers. RightCare’s software is based on 10 years of academic and clinical research and has helped hospitals nationwide optimize workflow, reduce length of stay times, reduce readmissions and ensure hospitals meet Medicare-mandated standards for preventable readmissions.
We’ve seen time and time again how effective post-care planning with providers, community organizations and technology can significantly decrease readmissions, so it’s encouraging to see these efforts are now supporting caregivers.
Readers: Are you a family caregiver? What are some of the challenges you face, and what tools are you using to help? Let us know in the comments.