How NGL Helps Hospitals and Health Systems Implement “Hospital at Home”
Strategic Counsel For Hospital at Home Program Providers
Nixon Gwilt Law helps health systems and hospitals seizing upon the opportunity to move healthcare into patient homes to:
Understand the legal and regulatory requirements for compliance with the Acute Hospital Care at Home Waiver;
Evaluate key cost, revenue, and patient care drivers that inform a hospital’s “buy or build” calculus;
Identify where software and technology align with the resources needed to implement a Hospital at Home Program;
Negotiate confidently and build win-win relationships with technology and services vendors;
Maximize revenue opportunities and flexibility in payer relationships;
Implement a successful Hospital at Home program; and
Bolster ongoing operations and integration of new services and payment models.
On this page you’ll discover several value creation opportunities your organization should consider with Hospital at Home, and how Nixon Gwilt Law’s healthcare innovation attorneys can partner with your in-house legal and implementation teams to maximize those opportunities.
What is ‘Hospital at Home’?
Hospital at Home® is a specific model, first developed by Johns Hopkins Schools of Medicine and Public Health, “that provides hospital-level care in a patient's home as a full substitute for acute hospital care.”
The phrase “Hospital at Home,” or “HAH,” has evolved to be synonymous with Acute Care Delivery at Home Programs more generally. During the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (PHE), CMS implemented a payment model to reimburse hospital-level care for acute patients in the home environment.
As you can imagine, giving hospital-equivalent care in the home is not an easy feat. And if you’re of a compliance or risk management mindset, you may already be slowly backing away from this idea with your hands up.
However, there are specific benefits to this complex service that make it worthwhile for hospitals—not only to bolster the bottom line, but to provide truly patient-centered care.
3 Key Components for Hospital at Home Success—and the Partners to Make it Happen
Evaluating the options for Hospital at Home to best fit your business model, patient community, and available resources is key.
After you have identified the opportunity to implement a HAH program, overall success depends on achieving enterprise-wide strategic stakeholder engagement and buy-in. It also depends on choosing the right innovation, execution, and reimbursement partners.
#1: Innovation
Choose Experienced Innovation Legal Counsel
Aligning yourself with an experienced Hospital at Home innovation attorney—ideally one with in-house operational experience in a large health system—ensures you make both the right business decision and one that you can successfully implement.
In addition to our Hospital and Health System team’s in-house operational and legal experience, Nixon Gwilt Law attorneys as a whole bring a depth of experience from Capitol Hill; the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, including the FDA; “Big Law” firms; and health tech companies.
As a healthcare innovation law firm, we are focused on the constantly changing regulatory environment, and we routinely work with regulators to bring solutions to client problems.
We work with hundreds of digital health companies and virtual care management providers every year, and respected outlets like The Wall Street Journal rely on our commentary for breaking news in healthcare innovation and reimbursement. Our attorneys regularly grace the stages of the most influential industry conferences because of their practical experience in matters many companies have never even heard of, let alone attempted.
Innovation is where we live, and it's why we're natural partners for a Hospital at Home initiative.
#2: Execution
Select Internal and Vendor Partnerships
Your team must decide whether to rely on existing resources within your hospital or health system, or whether to partner with one or more vendors to provide all or part of the technology and services infrastructure for your HAH program. HAH vendor solutions include software platforms, logistics, clinical and non-clinical human capital, devices, medical supplies and testing, transportation, and more.
We work with hundreds of these types of businesses each year. They seek our guidance to break new ground, navigate the regulatory gray zones that come with this level of innovation, and manage risks and opportunities on the path to long-term growth.
If the types of companies you want to partner with come to us for guidance, then you know you’re in good hands with Nixon Gwilt Law.
#3: Reimbursement
Negotiate Payor Arrangements
Hospital level care at home programs also bring opportunities for new value-based payment partnerships.
Not only is the full Medicare DRG payment currently available for the Acute Hospital Care at Home Program, but more managed care providers are looking for alternative options for providing high quality care to their members.
Contract negotiations between providers and health plans can be complex. We routinely guide clients to better terms than they think are available while protecting against undue risk.
The result is building win-win relationships between providers and payors.
How Nixon Gwilt Law Helps Hospitals and Health Systems Evaluate and Implement Hospital at Home
As a nationally recognized, female-founded law firm exclusively dedicated to advancing the future of healthcare, Nixon Gwilt Law works best with innovative clients who seek to transform how people receive and experience healthcare.
Novel and disruptive healthcare companies seek our guidance to break new ground, navigate the regulatory gray zones that come with this level of innovation, and manage risks and opportunities on the path to long-term growth.
Why? Because we work exclusively with healthcare innovators and have deep expertise in the legal, regulatory and reimbursement landscape around Care at Home.
From explaining Hospital at Home to stakeholders who need to understand it at a high level to “buy-in” to deciding whether this care delivery model is worth pursuing, all the way down to fine-tuning a fully functional program as policy and technology evolve, our Hospital at Home team brings experience and operational insight to the table.
Meet Nixon Gwilt Law’s Hospital at Home Team
Rebecca Gwilt, Esq.
The Strategic Translator—that’s how healthcare business clients refer to Founding Partner Rebecca Gwilt’s role in their businesses. Rebecca previously served at CMS, where she helped develop Affordable Care Act (ACA) policy, guidance, regulations, and technology contracts. A longtime advocate of virtual care, she remains at the forefront of this evolving market.
Stephanie Barnes, JD, PhD
Stephanie’s expertise in digital health and telemedicine, especially in SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS contracting, position her as a strong partner for Hospital at Home initiatives. With 20 years of experience providing business counsel and legal advice regarding the healthcare regulatory landscape, she brings a wealth of wisdom to any innovation team.
What Clients Like about Working with Us
NGL’s collaborative and innovative work style means you have a core unit of attorneys from our Hospital at Home team behind you, supported as needed by our entire team of healthcare innovation attorneys and diverse subject matter experts.
(Think: Remote Patient Monitoring, Remote Therapeutic Monitoring, Privacy and Security, Contracts, Virtual Care Management, Telemedicine, Telepharmacy, AI, Machine Learning, and more.)
You’ll be matched to a Lead Attorney within the team who will coordinate all your legal support throughout the Firm and serve as your main point of contact. Maintaining oversight over this work is the Partner on Point, and underpinning it all are our technological solutions and finely-honed processes. (We were working as a cohesive virtual team with experts and clients all over the country long before the pandemic.)
How to Find Out If We’re a Good Fit for Your Organization
Schedule a brief introductory meeting to discuss your goals. We’ll share how we help Hospitals and Health Systems like yours evaluate, implement, and improve Hospital at Home.
Click the blue button below to tell us a little bit about your organization. Then we’ll send you a link to schedule an introductory meeting at your convenience.
It’s that easy.