How Hospice Care Helps Hospitals and Health Systems Succeed

VITAS understands hospitals’ and health systems’ objectives within the value-based healthcare environment: to provide high-quality, cost-effective care that meets and improves ever-changing industry metrics.

Aided by VITAS’ hospice expertise along the care continuum, hospitals and health systems can effectively mitigate risks and achieve optimal, patient-centered outcomes.

A VITAS partnership directly addresses hospital and health system challenges of high-need/high-cost (HNHC) patients. When advanced illness patients or patients with elevated Hierarchical Condition Category (HCC) risk scores no longer respond to curative treatments or restorative care, VITAS transitions them seamlessly to hospice in the most appropriate secondary site of care.

We provide palliative care options in lieu of aggressive treatments, supported by hospice’s interdisciplinary focus on symptom management, pain relief and enhanced quality of life.

Succeeding in an Ever-Changing Value-Based Care Landscape

Leverage the Benefits of Discharging Hospice-Eligible Patients to VITAS

A VITAS partnership helps your hospital or health system:

• Manage DRG costs and payment challenges via seamless care transitions that reduce overall costs for patients with advanced illness
• Provide immediate, multi-level care to hospice-eligible, high-need, high-cost advanced illness patients: Traditional interdisciplinary hospice care that is supported by respiratory therapy, PT/OT/Speech therapy, music therapy, dietary support, nutritional counseling and other services, when necessary
• Reduce readmissions, in-house mortality rates and use of intensive services
• Decrease length-of-stay (LOS) to reduce boarding challenges and improve emergency department (ED) throughput
• Form a seamless bridge between the hospital and appropriate, secondary sites of care
• Support the hospital's value-based care measures and quality indicators
• Support seamless interoperability between VITAS and hospital referral systems

Leverage VITAS’ Expertise in Care Coordination

VITAS' care coordination pathways include:

• An average of five-plus visits per patient per week by our interdisciplinary care team
• 24-hour access to VITAS staff who can dispatch a clinician to the bedside 24/7/365
• Shifts of continuous care at the bedside, when medically necessary, until symptoms are under control