Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Welcome to Home Health Revealed, where we share real stories from industry leaders about home health, palliative and hospice care. Brought to you by Velocity. Grow your home health or hospice agency with the power of Velocity. Velocity's easy to read coding and revenue cycle dashboards let you grab your cup of coffee and quickly see the health of your organization. Welcome to Home Health Revealed. We are at the Alliance 2025 in New Orleans. It is so much fun here. Everything is a buzz. We just got through lunch, so we're nice and happy and fed. And now we can talk all the talking things. And I am co hosting this episode with Jess Chu. Jess, will you tell us who you are in case the audience doesn't know and then who you're with?
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Sure. I'm Jess Chew, EVP of growth at Trella Health. Trella provides market data and CRM for hospice, home health, and skilled nursing facilities.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: And I have to tell you, we did an episode earlier with Jack Bell that had nothing to do with home health and hospice at all. We just did a Cowboys trivia.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: I was gonna say if it didn't have to do with post acute. I bet it had to do with football.
[00:01:02] Speaker A: Yeah, it did.
It was a fun episode. Again, off the beaten path. But that's okay. We make the rules while we're here in New Orleans.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: Love it.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: And I also have with me Natalie McNeil. Natalie, will you introduce yourself, please, and tell us who you're with?
[00:01:15] Speaker C: Yes, I'm Natalie McNeil. I am the director of hospice and in home palliative care for Northeast Georgia Health System. So we're a health system in Northeast Georgia.
Very descriptive name, right?
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Yes, Perfect. I love when that happens.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: I'm also board chair for the Georgia Hospice and Palliative Care Organization, and I'm the education chair for the Alliance. Oh, wow.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: Man, what a resume. I'm so glad. Thank you for taking the time to sit down with us. I wanted to start with asking you some questions. Just kind of jumping in deep to quality and compliance. What are you doing through all of those organizations that you work with? Cause you have some great titles behind your name there. How are you ensuring compliance in the hospice space right now?
[00:01:56] Speaker C: So right now with compliance, we just went through our accreditation survey and deemed status, which was exciting. It was my first time doing that at my current organization.
So we spent a lot of time going through all of the regulations and the standards and making sure that we all understood how we were on point with each of those particular regulations.
The other thing that I think is critical is person centered Care, that's what we're challenged to do. Every patient is different end of life. You absolutely need to honor that patient and their individuality in your care planning. So I think that probably is the biggest factor in quality and in compliance because that care, we're mandated right to be individualized.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: And I think there's no copy and paste when it comes to clients. Right. And I think in this world of documentation, it can maybe be tempting to hit that copy and paste button for that plan of care. And that is just not something that is okay. And I love that you take that perspective that every patient is unique.
And therefore, when you're building what I like to refer to as the paper patient for compliance, you really have to create those unique documents as well.
[00:03:04] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:05] Speaker A: Let's talk about Georgia.
What is one very little known that you would think fact about the state.
[00:03:13] Speaker C: Of Georgia from a hospice perspective? We have over 300 hospices in the state and we are not the largest state. So we don't have a certificate of need in Georgia. And it creates in a lot of ways a lot of competition, keeps us on top of our game. And I think because of that we do deliver some great care in the state, but it also creates some challenges and that we have a lot of very small hospice organizations and so their resources aren't as prevalent. So we've had to create ways to come together and share our things that we're doing that are different or delivering that person centered care. So I think that's one of the things that is very different about us.
[00:03:52] Speaker B: I don't have any data on this, but I also live in Georgia and I feel like we're getting a lot of retirees that are especially in the north Georgia area because it's so beautiful with the mountains, beautiful climate, not too harsh of winters, all the lakes, all the lakes. Yeah, it's a great place to be. And I'm wondering is that going to continue to cause an increase in demand for hospice services? And if you've seen anything in your.
[00:04:14] Speaker C: Areas, we've definitely seen more and more hospices coming in to our areas. We have on both sides of the county that I'm in are the two fastest growing counties in the state. And so there is a lot of interest in coming our direction. One of the things that we're seeing is more of a need for general inpatient level of care, which is not readily available in northeast Georgia. So we are actually working on breaking ground on an inpatient unit. We broke ground a few weeks ago.
[00:04:39] Speaker A: Wow, congrats Right.
[00:04:40] Speaker C: You don't hear a lot of hospices building new inpatient units, but it's such a critical need in our area, and our hospitals just don't have the number of beds that are needed to be able to house them there. And plus, it's just better care in inpatient unit. When you are surrounded in a unit designed that was built for end of life care.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Will that be a standalone.
[00:04:59] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: Building.
[00:05:00] Speaker C: Wow, you're right.
[00:05:01] Speaker B: You don't hear that much. That's wonderful.
[00:05:03] Speaker A: Yeah. That's incredible. And to have just gone through your accreditation. I did want to take a minute and go back to that. And you're right. Compliance wise. Having to go through all of those, even as a team, is a great educational process. There's so much to be learned. And I feel like once you kind of open that book and start diving in, there are just those things that you reinvigorate in your mind.
[00:05:25] Speaker C: That, and then making sure that everyone's on the same page. This, that when a surveyor talks to someone, they're gonna ask questions, they're gonna ask those same questions to someone else. So for people to truly understand in their organization how they're meeting those regulations and talking through it and having that confidence is critical to success.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Helps you really talk through processes. It increases operational efficiency, you know, from just very practical standpoint.
[00:05:50] Speaker C: And the why. Why are we doing this? I think that's good. Some of the things, you know, do seem burdensome from time to time, but we, we do them because they're a requirement. And then we also talk about why they're so important. We talk a lot about with the HCI's, you know, if you don't read the reasons behind what the quality that they're trying to pull from that is, then you don't really understand. One of the things that I try to tell people about when we're Talking about the HCI's is when you're looking at the gaps in skilled nursing care, you know, we don't have to provide that much, but they're looking at a seven day gap. Is that good care? Yes. But if you read the reason why in their document, it's actually because they see with patients that have those gaps, they're not identifying exacerbation of symptoms, they're not educating the families, and they're utilizing more resources that could have been avoided.
[00:06:38] Speaker A: Yeah, no, those are great thoughts. Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down and talk with us. It's been great getting to know you.
[00:06:45] Speaker C: Yes, thank you.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: And thanks for sharing some of your expertise there on the quality piece. Appreciate that.
[00:06:49] Speaker C: I'm thankful to be here. Thank you.
[00:06:50] Speaker A: Yeah. Have a good rest of your conference.
