Lexington Health Care Centers - Contract Therapy Teamwork Takes On PPS And Triumphs!

Royal Management is a family-owned business begun with a single traditional nursing home facility in 1984. Today the business owns and operates Lexington Health Care Centers (LHCC) which includes ten facilities and nearly 2000 skilled beds, all in the Chicago area. The patient base is a mix of basic skilled, post-acute and subacute. A typical resident stays 2-4 years. Two of the facilities are located on owned and operated retirement community campuses. Some apartment residents in these communities come to the nursing facility for stabilization, recovery and rehabilitation, then return to their apartments. All ten facilities are certified for Medicare and Medicaid.

RehabCare Group provides contract therapy services to LHCC. The two firms have worked together since 1998.

Jean Duffy, RN, LNHA, Reimbursement Systems Coordinator, recently took a few minutes out of her busy schedule to discuss the working partnership with RehabCare Group from the LHCC perspective.

"RehabCare's contract therapy group joined with LHCC more than a year ago, during the same time that the PPS was being initiated. With changes in reimbursements, we saw the need to do business in a different way in order to maintain our commitment to longterm care patients.

The services RehabCare Group makes available to LHCC include:

• On-site management personnel in the form of Program Coordinators
• Therapists and Therapy Assistants
• Inservicing for all rehab nursing and therapy staff
• Multi-site management by the Director of Operations
• Program development activities to support nursing systems
• Resident training programs such as a dining program, positioning, fall prevention
• PPS guidance/consultation
• Community education/census development activities

"They've helped us make a nice transition into the new millennium, working and evolving with us to meet the challenges of our new reimbursement environment. Our management and care delivery has been restructured, for one thing. They've brought us the information systems necessary for PPS, a specialty of theirs. And they've continued to assist in the clinical area to implement the RUGs (Resource Utilization Groups) driven systems. They are proactive in evaluating all of our residents to ensure optimal functionality, and they are now even helping us with community outreach."

Ms. Duffy describes the LHCC/ RehabCare relationship as "truly a partnership in care."

"We work together to assure they aren't an island of rehab service, but a member of our care delivery team. To us, that means helping find ways to carry out our mission as a provider of skilled nursing services. They help us develop systems and services that keep us viable in the PPS environment and responsive to patients' needs. The merger of their organization and methods has been very smooth. We haven't had to reinvent ourselves despite the changed environment. We haven't skipped a beat."

She emphasizes the value of teamwork between the two organizations. "Our partnership means we have a team approach to care delivery. They work with us to see the whole picture and provide a good balance of services and care between therapy and nursing. Rehabilitation services are integrated right into our care delivery structure."

Ms. Duffy also cites the comfort level that is characteristic of the relationship, and its positive effect on dealing with ongoing issues on a daily basis. "From the corporate office to the site, RehabCare is very responsive. They demonstrate genuine concern for our residents' needs."

Pat Henry, Vice President of Operations for RehabCare Group, says, "The relationship with LHCC is running just the way it is supposed to run. We're doing the things that need to be done in order to help them every way we can. We're all in this together, sharing the same goal. We provide the appropriate level of service to support the patient's RUG. The bottom line is, the partnership helps them provide the best quality of care possible for their patients."

Ms. Duffy concurs. "We look to RehabCare as the experts in rehabilitation and PPS," says Ms. Duffy. "They listen to us as experts in our business. Together we meet our goals. One reason we're able to keep our cost under control is because they provide controls, systems and the reporting necessary for RUGs."

The bottom line for Ms. Duffy?

"We've been able to meet our ongoing commitment to quality service that we provided prior to PPS. The relationship with RehabCare has proven successful because we share the same interests in quality resident outcomes."

Provided by: RehabCare Group