Countdown for Senior Living Communities to Prepare for New Patient-Driven Payment Model Rapidly Approaches

September 23, 2019

KNOXVILLE, TN–In nearly one week, senior living communities across the country will be mandated to move from the Resource Utilization Group payment model to the new Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM). In anticipation of this mandatory reimbursement model scheduled for October 1, 2019, Functional Pathways, a leading national contract therapy provider, has spent the last two years reengineering its proprietary clinical software, RightTrack™, to deliver on the new PDPM. The PDPM focuses on outcome-driven care based on the individual needs, characteristics and goals of the patient.

“This change in the reimbursement model is significant and a long overdue change for the therapy and senior living fields,” said Dan Knorr, president and CEO of Functional Pathways. “As a therapist-owned organization, our clinical team is tirelessly diligent about ensuring that all of our clients are optimizing and tracking patient outcomes and communicating their patients’ progress to their loved ones, physicians and community staff, providing the ultimate patient care in the best way possible. We will continue to invest in new technologies and ensure we maximize clinical outcomes for our clients and patients we serve across our footprint.”

Developed in 2011, RightTrack is a three-step clinical care management system designed to capture patient-specific characteristics, goal progress and outcomes based on Functional Pathways’ evidenced-based Clinical Pathways. These pathways serve as a road map for the therapists to target their treatments based on Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Service’s (CMS) newly defined PDPM clinical categories. Ultimately, the redesigned system helps senior living communities ensure that their patients achieve their functional goals and reduces patient rehospitalizations.

“RightTrack leverages Functional Pathways’ rich history of treatment data by leveraging predictive analytics to determine the best-customized therapy intensity levels on a patient-by-patient basis,” said Tammy L. Wingo, PhD, director and national analytics practice leader of CRI Advanced Analytics, a portfolio company of Carr, Riggs, & Ingram. “Senior living communities now have the ability to adjust those levels based on the patient’s performance over time, with a goal of obtaining the best outcomes with the optimal amount of therapy.”

Dr. Wingo added, “By using data science methodologies that are able to classify patients into similar ‘groups’ based on numerous sets of criteria, predicting the amount and intensity of therapy is more accurate and precise, relative to the individual patient’s needs and abilities; therefore, objectives are achieved with optimal therapy protocols.”

Functional Pathways is a national contract therapy provider with more than two decades of experience serving senior living communities. Currently, Functional Pathways serves approximately 150 senior living communities in 20 states. As a therapist-owned organization, it continues to focus on outcomes, innovations and relationships as it partners with its clients to deliver therapy a better way through customized clinical programs.