Five Star Home Health

Five Star Home Health, Inc. Awarded CHAP Accreditation

2/11/2019

Los Angeles, CA — February 11, 2019 — Community Health Accreditation Partner, Inc., (CHAP) announced today that Five Star Home Health, Inc. has been awarded CHAP Accreditation for another three years under the CHAP Home Health Standards of Excellence.

CHAP Accreditation demonstrates that Five Star Home Health, Inc. meets the industry's highest nationally recognized standards. The rigorous evaluation by CHAP focuses on structure and function, quality of services and products, human and financial resources and long-term viability. Adherence to CHAP's standards leads to better quality care and better business performance.

Home Health Saves $15,233 per Patient while Improving Survival

6/7/2018

In April, The American Journal of Medicine published a study reviewing the files of 17,629 patients discharged from the Cleveland Clinic. Researchers set out to evaluate the effect of home health on healthcare resource utilization.¹ Their subjects included 6,363 patients discharged to home health and 11,266 matched controls who elected self-care at discharge.

During the 365 days following discharge, patients who received home health services spent $15,233 less on health care compared to the patients who elected self-care. This was in absolute dollars. After adjusting for covariates, researchers tallied the one-year savings associated with home health at $6,433. These savings accrued despite the fact that Medicare pays 100% for home health services with no copay or deductibles for patients.

Osteoarthritis of the Knee

4/11/2018

Large Review Confirms Efficacy of In-Home Physical Therapy

Osteoarthritis causes more disability in walking, stair climbing, and housekeeping than any other disease.¹ Lower extremity weakness is common in osteoarthritis of the knee. Strengthening, coordination, and aerobic improvement may decrease joint loading rate and stresses on articular cartilage, thereby playing an important role in ameliorating the progression of osteoarthritis. A referral for physical therapy has long been part of recommendations for treatment options, and new evidence confirms and qualifies the efficacy of such referrals.

Potentially Inappropriate Medications

3/8/2018

Common in Home Health – Increase Hospitalization Rates Up to 33%

Potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs) refer to those medications that create greater complication risk for elderly patients due to the altered pharmacodynamics and pharmacokinetics among the elderly. Such medications are not necessarily inappropriate, because only the prescriber’s clinical judgement, in consultation with individual patients, can weigh the pros and cons of each prescription. PIM use has been connected with falls, adverse drug reactions, emergency department visits, and hospitalizations.¹⁻⁷ Nevertheless, high levels of PIM-taking persist across various segments of the elderly population. Among ambulatory care patients, it has been measured as high as 13%.⁸⁻⁹ In long-term care facilities, PIM usage reaches 50%.¹⁰ On the other hand, some studies have questioned the ability of PIMs to predict negative outcomes.¹¹⁻¹²

STEADI Cuts Repeat Hospitalizations for Fall Injuries 60%

2/6/2018

Every second of every day, an American age 65+ falls. Every 20 minutes, an older American dies from a fall. Surveys show that 28.7% of Americans age 65+ fall each year, and the prevalence continues to rise with age.¹ Treatment of these injuries costs Medicare $31.3 billion annually.² That cost is likely to rise as America’s senior population expands 55% by the year 2030. A clear way for primary care practitioners to protect patients from this injury, loss of independence, and death is to identify patients at risk of falls and reduce those risks. Government agencies such as CMS and the CDC are hoping these practices can also curb national spending on the leading cause of fatal and non-fatal injuries among seniors. Multifactorial approaches in primary care have been shown to reduce falls by 24%.³

Get Paid for the Work You Do with Five Star Home Health, Inc.

1/9/2018

Did you know that doctors have six different codes they can bill to receive additional reimbursement for the work they do with Five Star Home Health? At the very least, doctors should be billing for certification and recertification every time they sign a plan of care (form CMS 485). The certification code pays roughly the equivalent of a level-III office visit, and the recertification code pays a little more than a level-II office visit. The documentation requirements for these codes are nothing more than saving the paperwork you are reviewing. Five Star Home Health very much values the oversight provided by our referring physicians. We prepared this bulletin to help doctors make sure they are receiving full reimbursement for the valuable services they provide.

Fall Prevention among Community-Dwelling Seniors with Dementia

2/28/2017

An estimated 30% of community-dwelling adults age 65 and over experience one or more falls each year.¹ After a fall, rehab programs to reduce the risk of injury should be common, as they are proven effective and universally recommended.² Among seniors with dementia, the annual risk of falls skyrockets to 50% to 80%.³⁻⁴ While it is commonly understood that dementia creates challenges in social and self-care tasks, it is easier to overlook the fact that dementia is connected with difficulties in postural control and gait.⁵⁻⁶ Balance and mobility impairments rank as important fall-risk factors for seniors,⁷ and these factors are known to decline at a significantly faster rate among seniors living with dementia.⁸ Given these heightened risk factors, it would seem that seniors with dementia who have fallen would merit an increased impetus for rehab. However, it is also easy to imagine how clinicians could have concerns over how dementia would affect the efficacy of fall-rehab programs for community-dwelling seniors. Elissa Burton and colleagues recently addressed this question in a meta-analysis published in Clinical Interventions in Aging.⁹

Keck Medical Center of USC and USC Verdugo Hills Hospital Work with Five Star Home Health

2/8/2017

As of January 27, 2017, Five Star Home Health, Inc. has been officially added to an exclusive list of providers for Keck Medical Center of USC and USC Verdugo Hills Hospital. This list will be given to patients that are seeking a home health agency following joint replacement.

We are proud and privileged to have the opportunity to be one of the select few to provide home health care services for such a respected set of hospitals that are consistently ranked among the nation’s best.

Many thanks to Keck and Verdugo for trusting Five Star Home Health to deliver passionate care for their patients. We look forward to building a relationship focused on bringing a better quality of health and superior outcomes.

For more information on the services we’ll be providing for these USC hospitals, email us or give us a call at 310-642-0026.

Physical Therapy Improves Function in Parkinson’s Disease

1/26/2017

Each year, doctors diagnose 60,000 new cases of Parkinson’s disease (PD). Parkinson’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder challenging patients in gait, transfers, balance, and posture - among other challenges. As Parkinson’s disease progresses, patients face increased dependence, inactivity, and social isolation. With advances in pharmacology and surgery giving PD patients longer lives and increased motor function, interventions to maximize patient autonomy, prepare family caregivers, and otherwise improve quality of life become increasingly important. The evidence now demonstrates that a referral to physical therapy can add to the benefits achieved through usual care.

Claire Tomlinson and colleagues recently completed the largest review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials on physical therapy for Parkinson’s disease.¹

The Sequelae of Bed Rest - Elderly Patients Lose Muscle Mass at Three Times the Normal Rate

1/11/2017

Bed rest serves as a time-honored recommendation for both injury and illness, and it is prescribed more often around flu season. A normal muscle, at complete rest, in the absence of illness, loses up to 15% of its strength each week.¹ During bed rest, the first muscles to become atrophied are the trunk and lower extremity muscles involved in gait and upright posture.² Illness itself can also cause atrophy of the skeletal muscles, over and above the strength losses caused by rest. Your elderly patients prove particularly vulnerable to the negative sequela of rest. Among a test sample of healthy subjects age 67 and older, 10 days of bed rest resulted in more lean tissue loss than 28 days of bed rest caused in younger test subjects.³⁻⁴ For patients over the age of 70, bed rest is associated with a major new disability in one-third of prolonged cases.⁴⁻⁵ Among elderly patients, when the negative effects of bed rest are not addressed assertively, injury or prolonged difficulties become more likely. Call Five Star Home Health to help patients restore their former ability after bed rest.

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