How do skilled nursing rehabilitation managers track efficiency and costs?

Area of Science:

• Healthcare Management
• Rehabilitation Services
• Health Economics

Background:

• Financial and efficiency indicators are underutilized by skilled nursing facility (SNF) rehabilitation managers.
• Prospective Payment System (PPS)-driven long-term care (LTC) environments necessitate effective financial and efficiency monitoring.
• Understanding indicator usage is crucial for optimizing SNF rehabilitation management.

Purpose of the Study:

• To demonstrate a method for measuring the utilization of financial and efficiency indicators by SNF rehabilitation managers.
• To investigate differences in indicator usage across occupational, physical, and speech therapy disciplines.
• To assess the application of volume, revenue, cost, and manpower indicators in SNF rehabilitation.

Main Methods:

• A pilot study involving 221 SNF rehabilitation managers from a multinational healthcare corporation.
• Distribution of Likert scale surveys to gather data on the use of 32 financial and efficiency indicators.
• Chi-square analyses to compare indicator usage frequency across therapy disciplines.

Main Results:

• Twelve of the 32 indicators were regularly used by at least 60% of respondents; three were used by 85-100%.
• No statistically significant differences in overall indicator usage were found between therapy disciplines (p > 0.05).
• Physical therapy managers showed some significant differences in the use of payermix indicators.

Conclusions:

• Discipline-specific differences exist in the utilization of financial and efficiency indicators among LTC rehabilitation managers.
• The developed survey method effectively demonstrated variations in indicator usage.
• There is a clear need for enhanced education on cost-monitoring techniques for SNF rehabilitation managers.