One New York health system's push to improve care as patients move from hospital to nursing home also positioned the system for Medicare's bundled payment experiment, said officials with North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, one of the initiative's final candidates.
Four of the health system's 11 hospitals were among more than 400 organizations named in January as candidates to test Medicare payment bundles for four dozen conditions or procedures. With bundled payments, hospitals receive a lump sum for all the care that a patient receives for a certain procedure—and some bundles can include care provided outside the hospital for weeks or months afterward.
North Shore-LIJ executives are evaluating partners to help provide the care included in the bundle of services, Maureen McClusky, executive director, North Shore-LIJ's Orzac and Stern Family Centers for Rehabilitation, told an audience at the American College of Healthcare Executives Congress on Healthcare Leadership. The bundled payment initiative is “all we're talking about,” she said.
Those prospective partners include the system's network of affiliated nursing homes, developed during the past five years, which work closely with the system on quality improvement, she said.
