Dive Brief:
- Partners Healthcare will end inpatient operations at Spaulding Hospital for Continuing Medical Care North Shore by Sept. 30 due to new CMS regulations.
- Beginning in October, LTAC facilities will only be reimbursed at the full prospective payment system rate if their patients have spent at least three days in an intensive-care unit or at least 96 hours on a ventilator, Modern Healthcare reports, while all other patient stays would yield a per diem "site-neutral" payment rate.
- This facility was already struggling and would not be able to manage under the new regulations, David Storto, president of Partners' continuing-care division and the Spaulding Rehabilitation Network, told the publication.
Dive Insight:
Storto says the facility would also be negatively impacted by Medicare's new "25% rule", which will begin penalizing LTACs that get more than 25% of their patients from a single referring hospital, beginning Sept. 30, 2017. He adds that Spaulding's other LTAC facility in Cambridge will be able to weather the new regulations because it has more referral partners and less dependence on Medicare patients.
Partners Healthcare says it will attempt to match the 320 full- and part-time displaced employees with jobs at its other facilities, and has not released an estimate on how many people will be left jobless following the hospital closure.
Partners Healthcare says it will attempt to match the 320 full- and part-time displaced employees with jobs at its other facilities, and has not released an estimate on how many people will be left jobless following the hospital closure.
"Right now our major priority is winding down things as smoothly as possible," Storto told Modern Healthcare.