Developing Specialty Units in Skilled Nursing Facilities: A Discussion of Regulatory and Other Aspects

Many skilled nursing facilities (“SNFs”) have chosen to develop and focus on the care of certain patients by developing “specialty units” in their facilities. There are numerous drivers of this trend –

• increasing acuity of SNF patients paired with the loss of “traditional” nursing home patients to non-institutional long-term services and supports;
• Identification of new SNF patient populations with mental and behavioral health, substance abuse, or specialty needs like dialysis or hospice; and
• Desires by SNF operators to partner more closely with hospitals or managed care providers to meet population health needs.

Through analysis and discussion of various types of specialty care SNF providers have set up, the speakers will lead an interactive program with the audience which will examine these specialty care units from a regulatory, legal, and operations perspective. The program will also seek to propose suggestions for regulatory reforms that could aide in the development of specialty units.

The session will seek to cover the following issues:

• Types of specialty services are SNF operators developing;
• Identifying major obstacles or challenges within federal regulations that impede development of specialty services;
• Providing examples of states or other situations where specialty units have succeeded;
• Identifying operational competencies needed before developing specialty units; and
• How to evaluate a partnership with another organization in a specialty unit.

The program is designed to be a high-level program where the audience will already have a basic level of knowledge of long-term care regulations and some experience with SNF operations.

Other Speakers

David C. Beck, Chief Legal Officer at Signature HealthCARE LLC

Webinar Details

For more information on this webinar, visit the AHLA event page.