The Hospitals' Opportunity
Because the Warrior Community already populates the private healthcare system, private healthcare facilities are the ONLY entities that can address the Veteran Health Crisis.
When a healthcare facility accepts the challenge of this enormous responsibility it seizes an opportunity of equal magnitude: optimizing care for as much as a quarter of a facility’s patient population.
Take a Giant Step Toward
Achieving Your Facility’s Core Mission.
By optimizing care to an existing hospital population, a facility takes concrete steps to improve results against its core mission. For non-profit hospitals it also means fulfilling the Community Benefit requirements needed to retain tax-exempt status in one fell swoop.
Reduce Costly Readmissions
A hospital’s readmission rate is a prime measure of effectiveness: high readmission rates indicate poor patient outcomes. Readmissions can also be the source of significant cost:
The ACA requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to penalize hospitals for what they call “excess” readmissions, for which they’ve created an index. The penalties for missing the target can be steep: up to 3% of a hospital’s Medicare reimbursement rate. Because hospitals operate at a low margin, and Medicare reimbursements represent about 40% of the average hospital’s revenue, that 3% can represent the difference between operating in the red or the black. In 2018, the average hospital suffered a 7% reimbursement deduction because of excess readmission rate.
Margins diminish as hospitals readmit patients, even before the Medicare penalty kicks in, particularly for conditions with high rates of readmission, many of which the Warrior Community is particularly prone to.
Hospitals Can be the Heroes
of the Veteran Health Care Crisis.
Healthcare facilities that find a way to address their own Veteran Health Crisis successfully can be heroes not just to their own Warrior Community, but to the entire community.
Fortunately, there is a comprehensive solution within any hospital’s reach.