Home Health & Hospice Week

Looking for a way to achieve the holy grail of reducing your patients' hospital readmissions? You may want to examine your visit lengths.

In a study that examined patients with conditions that are subject to penalty under the Hospital Readmission Reduction Program, researchers found that "home health visits that are longer than usual by one minute reduce the risk of hospital readmission by approximately 8 percent," according to the study issued by the National Bureau of Economic Research.

In the study of a 96-location chain's visits in 16 states from 2012 to 2015, the average visit lasted 47 minutes, with about 14 visits in an episode. "We find that patients who are visited later in the provider's day as well as those who are visited by a provider who has a higher than usual workload experience home health visits that are shorter than usual," noted NBER in the study summary.

NBER urges providers to avoid overloaded schedules, but "of course, that's easier said than done in an era of razor-thin profit margins and the constant pressure from years of Medicare reimbursement rate cuts," notes the National Association for Home Care & Hospice in its member newsletter. "This puts enormous pressure on providers to find efficiencies that allow them to remain in business without creating work schedules that lead to home health visits that are shorter than optimal."

Bottom line: "The report notes that home health currently provides excellent value in reducing hospital readmissions, with just 2 percent of visits and 24 percent of home health episodes being followed by a readmission," NAHC points out. "The study is clear that home health is a critical part of reducing hospital readmissions, something everyone understands to be in the best interest of the patient and the health care system more generally."

See the study summary and purchase a copy of the full document at www.nber.org/papers/w24566.