New Care Improvement Initiative from Medicare Available at Saint Alphonsus

Posted on

Mar 01, 2016

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Saint Alphonsus is participating in a new Medicare initiative called Bundled Payment for Care Improvement program. This program was developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation as part of the Affordable Care Act to improve patient experience, quality of care and find new and better ways to provide and pay for healthcare designed for a growing population of Medicare and Medicaid members.

This free program encourages doctors, nurses and specialists to work together in a team so patients receive more coordinated care following hospital care. "Patients want their doctors to collaborate with all healthcare team members and their families," says Dr Chad Boult, Medical Director of Saint Alphonsus Center for Healthy Aging. "When doctors and other health care providers work together patients receive better care. This is a key element as we work toward providing the best care at a more reasonable cost."

Certain Medicare patients that fall into a preselected group of bundles while they are at the hospital are automatically enrolled into the program and are assigned a Nurse Navigator, who follow the patient across all care settings. This may include in-person and/or telephone visits made routinely for 90 days. The program also includes skilled nursing facility visits and collaboration with home health services.

Our Nurse Navigators work closely with patients and their care givers to review medications, address transportation issues, review red-flag symptoms, manage pain, address home/caregiver support, equipment needs, and social support, and make sure all appropriate screenings (mammograms, colonoscopies, flu shot, etc) are up-to-date.

At Saint Alphonsus we are excited to be part of this transformative program as it delivers meaningful patient-centered care. Our Boise, Nampa, and Ontario hospitals have Nurse Navigator's guiding patients to better understand their recovery, to set goals specific to their diagnosis, and to obtain resources as needed. Our collective learnings enable us to better deliver care across all settings and to best meet the health care needs of our patients, in the manner they prefer.



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