John Whitman, Executive Director of The TRECS Institute joined with the Leonard Davis Institute to host a one-day, invitation-only summit, "The Future of America’s Nursing Home Industry." Changes in healthcare reimbursement have resulted in hospitals creating “preferred provider nursing home networks,” with the goal of improving care and reducing costs. While most see this new positioning as a positive change, those nursing facilities not selected to participate in these new preferred networks are likely to become predominantly Medicaid-only facilities. This could be a serious issue because most state Medicaid programs reimburse nursing homes an average of $23 less per day than the actual costs. This could lead to multi-year periods of declining quality and ultimate closures for 30% or more of our nation’s 15,000 nursing facilities. This summit was designed to bring 45 experts in the nursing home field together to discuss this very issue. Instead of viewing this as a future financial and quality crisis (which it very likely could be), this group of professionals will view it as an opportunity, a catalyst if you will, to identify immediate opportunities to bring about needed operational and reimbursement changes that can result in improved care for our nation’s 1.4 million nursing facility residents and saved dollars that could eliminate the potential financial crisis that looms ahead for many of our nation’s 15,000 nursing facilities. The program, funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, was held on Friday, February 17th at the Leonard Davis Institute on the campus of the University of Pennsylvania.
Contact John at:
[email protected]
484.557.6980