Physician Staffing for SNFs

In skilled nursing facilities (SNFs), physician staffing is a major hurdle to high-quality care. Between a lack of time to give to your center and an unfamiliarity with your patient population, physicians often struggle to keep up with care demands and deliver positive care outcomes.

The reality? Physicians are not seeing your residents as much as they should. Only 30% of their time accounts for seeing patients, and the other 70% goes toward non-clinical tasks. This small sliver of time is not enough to help your residents recover — you need a solution that actually works. First Docs helps your SNF overcome today’s staffing challenges.

SNF Physician Staffing Challenges

Staffing continues to be one of the most significant challenges facing SNFs today. As these staffing challenges persist, more challenges — like lower quality of care and poor patient experience — follow as a result. Top hurdles include:

• Lack of specialization: Typically, SNFs rely on community physicians to provide care to their patients. While this model has worked to create a referral ecosystem for fee-for-service care, it doesn’t deliver the best outcomes. These community physicians lack specialization in inpatient care as well as the high acuity training that leads to better care for SNF residents.
• Hospitalist physicians: If your center works with hospitalist physicians, you partner with a provider who works 12-hour shifts and has limited time to tend to your residents. Between scant knowledge in post-acute rehab and a preference for hospital resources, hospitalist physicians tend to push for rehospitalization, which is equally expensive and disruptive to patient care.
• Limited resources: Many SNFs continue to face immense staffing shortages. According to the State of Sector released by the American Healthcare Association, 72% of facilities have lower staffing levels than before the pandemic. The staffing shortage is putting multiple clinical responsibilities on a small number of physicians. Tasks are more likely to slip through the cracks, and quality of care suffers as a result.
• Quantity over quality: The fee-for-service model has been the primary care model for SNFs for years, meaning care centers are focusing on the number of services provided, rather than the quality of care. With the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) pushing for value-based care programs, this quantity-over-quality approach falls short of patient needs and CMS requirements.

These staffing challenges continue to pose more issues for patients and their families. Shortages across the sector are causing long wait times for patients discharged from hospitals. Data from Q2 of 2023 shows that 43% of patients had to wait 30 days or more to be placed in a SNF.

Offering Timely Care

Delivering timely care is an essential practice for improving care outcomes. When physician visits are delayed, rehospitalizations are practically guaranteed to rise. According to a recent study, the risk of rehospitalization can rise from 3% to 35% each day a patient has to wait to be seen by a physician. Those are not good odds.

By addressing staffing challenges, SNFs have the physician availability to respond to needs proactively and improve outcomes in turn. More timely care results in:

• Prompt attendance to patients and their families for higher satisfaction ratings.
• Faster medical record completion for documentation needs.
• Reduced hospital readmissions.

First Docs helps skilled nursing centers provide more timely care with more active and present physicians. Rather than splitting attention between numerous facilities, our physicians focus on a smaller patient population. This staffing approach makes it easier for your residents to receive proactive care.

With First Docs, the percentage of residents who actually received follow-up care after a medication review increased by 6.3% compared to the national average. Rather than these medications causing issues for patients as their health needs change, our physicians respond to shifts in medication outcomes and make sure residents receive the care they need.

Increasing Physician Presence

Increased physician presence ties into offering timely care — when a physician is at your center more frequently, they are more in tune with patient needs. First Docs physicians are on-site five to seven days a week to provide the attention your residents require.

More frequent visits help our physicians address changing needs sooner and reduce wait times. Shorter wait times play a role in increasing satisfaction ratings for residents and their family members.

The national average for short-term stays is one visit per week. Compare this to First Docs’ average of four visits per week, and your short-term care patients are in for a significant improvement. For long-term residents, our physicians average about 2.5 visits per month, compared to one visit per month as the national average.

Improving Care Coordination

Care outcomes are not fully dependent on physicians. The key is to coordinate care with all providers involved in a resident’s care plan — and a present, active physician leads the charge in this area.

First Docs physicians facilitate communication between all providers and caretakers to deliver a higher quality of care. Collaboration between physical therapists, nutritionists, nurses, and family members ensures care plans are maintained at your center and following discharge. Our physicians establish clear goals and care items to make them easy to follow at every stage.

This coordination is important for every type of resident, but is especially valuable for managing chronic conditions. With the help of First Docs physicians, effective chronic care management (CCM) is within reach.

Overcome Physician Staffing Challenges With First Docs

Your skilled nursing facility’s staffing model isn’t cutting it. You need a more available, present, and collaborative SNF physician to meet your residents’ needs. First Docs physicians offer timely evaluations, proactive care, and innovative workflows to improve clinical outcomes, reduce hospitalizations, and increase reimbursements. Contact us today to get started.