Almost every facility will consider going in-house for rehab at some point. The reasons are almost always financial. You can see why, many providers are still charging amazingly high rates for Medicare Part A. It seems so simple to to just hire your own therapists and keep all the money.
Broad River Rehab encounters this enough that we have a transitional model in which we’ll help you take your program in-house. (Contact me if you have interest.) Given that we have experience, let’s go through some of the most common misconceptions we see.
-
Managing the therapy program is going to be easy. This is far and away number one. It’s something you aren’t doing now so you’ll either need to hire someone new, who understands therapy and the rules around it or you’ll need to promote a therapist to a management role and hope that person knows what they’re doing. A closely related problem is the misconception that you can just re-assign people on the fly to cover other duties in the building. Short on staff in the dining room? Send an OT down there to help out! Before you know it, your paying a therapist’s rate to do a CNA’s work.
-
Recruiting/Hiring isn’t a big deal. This is often overlooked. Even small rehab companies have full-time recruiters that provide a LOT of value that most homes never see. Recruiters know the market, the rates and the competition. They also know when to offer a sign-on bonus, how to negotiate and when to walk away. It’s very hard to know the market rates when you don’t recruit full time. A really good recruiter knows a lot of the candidates from experience. Wouldn’t it be nice to know who not to call? Also, recruiters understand the licensing process, the OIG process, etc. There is a LOT most people don’t see, like generating a PRN list.
-
Education. As a rehab company, we have people whose entire jobs are to understand regulatory affairs and compliance. That’s all day, every day regulatory and compliance. We make those people available to our customers, and to a lesser extent, everyone else. Do you have the time and staff to keep up with changes in the regulatory environment? Are you ready to do that training? I’m not just talking about PDPM here either. Think about Medicaid case-mix, Quality Measures, Value-Based Purchasing, 5 Star Ratings and all the other things that a good rehab partner should be help you with.
-
The Non-Compete isn’t going to be a big deal. Think again. Just last month we worked with someone who thought that, hired the therapists, got sued and lost. Broad River Rehab will write you a contract with no therapist non-compete AND a 30 day out for any reason or no reason at all. No one has ever taken us up on it, but it’s there if you need it. We’ll earn your business every month.
If you still want to go in-house, we’ll help you get there. But keep in mind that sometimes the grass is greener.
Ready to go in-house? Or just want to talk about it? Contact us today!
