Medical Center successfully reduces medical care costs and hospital readmission rates with innovative Medicare program to support recovery post hospital stay.
LOS ANGELES—The Continuing Care Program at CHA Hollywood Presbyterian Medical Center provides intensive support to Medicare patients for 90 days after discharge from CHA HPMC, while ensuring patients regain and maintain their health. On March 30, the “Harvard Business Review,” the world’s leading business and management magazine, published an authored article by Jamie Chang, MD, Chief Clinical Operations Officer at CHA HPMC, highlighting the medical center’s success under program in reducing readmissions and improving patient wellness and satisfaction. “Since BPCIA started, the medical care for HPMC’s patients has cost 15 percent less than the targets set by CMS,” said Dr. Chang.
CHA HPMC, in partnership with Charter Healthcare Group, launched the CCP in October 2018 to cost-effectively manage care for Medicare patients across a wide range of medical and procedural care clinical areas such as cardiac care and procedures (acute myocardial infarction, cardiac arrhythmia, congestive heart failure, and percutaneous coronary intervention), gastrointestinal care (gastrointestinal hemorrhage and obstruction), medical and critical care (cellulitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, bronchitis, and asthma, renal failure, sepsis, simple pneumonia and respiratory infections, and urinary tract infections), neurological care (seizure and stroke), orthopedics (hip and femur procedures, excluding major joints), and spinal procedures (spinal fusion).
CHA HPMC’s success under the Continuing Care Program can be attributed to six key factors:
- Multidisciplinary Team and Governance: CHA HPMC’s continuing care team—includes patient navigators, case managers, and post-discharge care coordinator—work together to develop action plans for each patient. The team was formed to improve care quality and efficiency under the aegis of Medicare’s Bundled Payments for Care Improvement Advanced Initiative. The hospital leadership team and board of directors assess the performance of the program on a monthly and quarterly basis respectively, and discuss areas of improvement.
- Generating Actionable Insights: The medical center partnered with Avant-garde Health to analyze its performance and collect helpful insights to improve patient care, costs, and operations.
- Managing Post-acute Care Spending: CHA HPMC partnered external vendors to offer post-acute services in coordination with the patient’s primary care team to offer necessary care at the comfort of their home and ensure patients’ medication compliance. The hospital also partnered with a health information exchange company to be notified if a patient under the Continuing Care Program visited an emergency department at another hospital to receive care. This helped CHA HPMC provide special care instructions to the ED staff and coordinate care.
- Hospice Program to Improve End-of-Life Care: The hospital launched an inpatient hospice program and educated patients, families, and physicians about the benefits of hospice.
- Generating Physicians Interest: CHA HPMC offered gainsharing agreements to ensure strong collaboration with physicians to drive improvement in care.
- Timely Coding to Identify Patients Suitable for the Program: The medical center’s coding team reviews patient documentation on a daily basis to proactively identify patients who would quality to be a part of the Continuing Care Program.
“With the strong engagement from all stakeholders of the Continuing Care Program, CHA HPMC has substantially improved its quality of care and medical care costs for patients. We are proud to offer this patient-centric program to help optimize outcomes and enhance recovery for patients post-discharge. CHA HPMC’s success under this program can help other healthcare providers when they undertake the same journey,” said Marcel Loh, CEO of CHA HPMC.
