Affiliations
In the past, most primary care physicians would follow their patients when they needed hospitalization, and when they became a resident in a post-acute or long-term care facility. That traditional practice paradigm is quickly changing in most areas of the country.
Today, with the drastic changes in healthcare delivery systems, malpractice, and reimbursement issues, most primary care physicians no longer follow their patients in the hospital or in post-acute settings. Their primary focus is caring for patients in their clinics relying on specialists to follow in the hospital, who are called Hospitalists, and specialists such as our group to follow their patients in post-acute and long-term care settings.
In each individual community in which we practice we have developed and maintain affiliations with most Primary Care Providers and Hospitalists. Our Physician affiliates depend on us to provide post-acute and long-term care coverage for their patients. They know and appreciate that our qualified clinicians will collaborate with them, and immediately follow their patients when necessary. As a result, their patients who generally are much more medically complex than in the past, are now able to be admitted quicker to post- acute settings and receive excellent continuity of care because of our increased coverage in those facilities.
Our Hospital affiliates are also able to discharge their patients quicker and sicker, reduce their lengths of stay, and facilitate quicker placements by their discharge planners/social workers. Also, hospitals do not suffer from non-reimbursed re-admissions under the Medicare DRG system, and/or unnecessary ER visits because we manage the resident's medical needs in the post-acute setting whenever medically possible.
Because of the tremendous benefits our affiliates gain when working with us, General Medicine has become a key source of referrals for the selected facilities where we have a presence. How does this happen? Patients are referred specifically to a General Medicine physician to attend to their post-acute medical needs upon discharge from the hospital, and also when they are being referred from home for long-term care placement.
In these situations, we agree to follow our affiliates patients in selected facilities in each area where we provide our services. So, if we are following residents in a specific facility, the facility then will receive referrals from our affiliates. If not, families generally choose another facility in the area where we do follow residents.
