Hospitals’ efforts to reduce post-acute care spending must focus on preventing complications. “Thus, quality improvement efforts that reduce postoperative complications will be a key component of success in emerging payment reform,” Dr. Kanters noted
Session moderator Courtney Balentine, MD, of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, asked Dr. Kanters whether the research considered the incentives hospital systems have for referring patients to their own post-acute care facilities. “Post-acute care association with a single hospital has been documented as a likely incentive for discharge to a non-home destination,” Dr. Kanters replied, which leads to higher utilization of “certain” post-acute care facilities and higher costs. However, she said, this study’s dataset could not parse out that trend. “That’s certainly something that needs to be investigated,” she said.
Dr. Kanters and her coauthors had no financial relationships to disclose.
Source: Kanters AE. Annual Academic Surgical Congress 2018.