• E-mail
• Print
• RSS

PA hospital group offers patients 90-day guarantee

Case Management Weekly, May 23, 2007

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Case Management Weekly!

The Geisinger Health System, a hospital group in central Pennsylvania, is attempting to change standard reimbursement protocols by offering its surgical patients a "guarantee of workmanship"-a 90-day follow-up grace period where patients can return for an appointment at no additional cost, according to an article in The New York Times

Under the pilot program, called ProvenCare, Geisinger physicians follow a 40-step system based on best practices for pre- and post-operative treatment and charge insurance companies a flat fee for the surgery, and half the amount it has determined as "the historical cost of related care for the next 90 days," The Times  reports.  The results of the Geisinger pilot, presented last month at a meeting of the American Surgical Association, showed that since the program's inception in February 2006, patients:

• Spent fewer days in the hospital
• Spent less money on co-payments
• Were more likely to go directly home from the hospital rather than to a nursing home

Source: The New York Times

Want to receive articles like this one in your inbox? Subscribe to Case Management Weekly!

• E-mail to a Colleague
• Print
• RSS
• Archive