Business Spotlight: Extensive Care

Those who work for and with Select Specialty Hospital understand its niche well. Patients, of course, also know well the function and purpose of the hospital.

The rest of the community, not so much, according to Select Specialty CEO Julie DeJean. No matter. DeJean said the 44-bed hospital serves a critical need in the Springfield area.

“We take patients straight from the ICUs of the two big hospitals. They are still on (ventilators); they are still on critical drips, but they are stabilized to a point where they know we can move them and we’ll continue in a long-term setting to get patients the care they need to get slowly off,” DeJean said.

She said short-term acute hospitals – traditional hospitals such as those run by Mercy and CoxHealth – typically average no more than five- or six-day stays for chronically ill patients.

That’s where Select Specialty steps in. The average length of stay at Select Specialty is 25 days for patients often being weaned off of ventilators, receiving infectious disease treatments or recovering from post-trauma care.

“If you think about people who have chronic problems, they get the same illnesses as everybody else, but it takes them twice as long to get over,” DeJean said, noting long-term acute care’s niche in the continuum of care. “Our patients might be paraplegics who have lived many years as paraplegics, but then maybe they have wounds and require special wound vacs and treatment.”

The long-term care facility, 1630 E. Primrose St., is among more than 100 nationwide under the umbrella of Mechanicsburg, Pa.-based Select Medical Holdings Corp. (NYSE: SEM). Select Specialty Hospital offers a range of services, including 24-hour respiratory care, rehabilitation therapies, intensive care and bariatric care. It treats patients with neurological disorders, heart failure, renal disorders and those suffering with medically complex conditions.

“It has been about 20-plus years since the advent of long-term acute care hospitals, and they were created because we were keeping people alive longer. We have ventilators now; we have dialysis; we have techniques that can take a person who is chronically, critically ill and get them well, get them home again,” said DeJean, who moved from a system in Topeka, Kan., to succeed Cindy Whitten after she took a post as vice president of Mercy-Springfield’s Women and Children’s Hospital.

Shan Campbell, corporate director of case management for CoxHealth, said Select Specialty fills an important role locally.

“I work with them on almost a daily basis,” Campbell said, referring to Select Specialty liaisons in Branson and Springfield.

She said the two liaisons can evaluate patient needs, and as Select Specialty takes on patients, that can free up space for Cox to serve others. Additionally, Medicare patient reimbursements are limited for short-term care facilities.

“We are only paid for a certain amount of days. Well, typically with the patients Select is able to take, we are out of the days we are allotted for those patients, so they definitely fill a niche,” Campbell said, adding the next nearest long-term acute care provider is in Joplin. “It also helps turn our beds over more quickly, so we can see more patients.”

The average age of Select Specialty patients is 63, younger than most nursing homes, but nearly half – 46 percent – are on Medicare, often due to prolonged, chronic conditions. Another 25 percent are on Medicaid at any given time, which can be challenging for the for-profit hospital system, DeJean said. Though she declined to disclose figures, she said revenue has climbed roughly 10 percent each year since the company set down Springfield roots in 2008.

The hospital is accredited through The Joint Commission, which ensures facilities meet the needs of patients requiring often difficult and lengthy treatments.

Select Specialty in Springfield regularly employs between 180 and 190 with the number changing daily based on needs. Most of its employees are registered nurses, though doctors, critical-care nurses, respiratory therapists, dieticians and nurse assistants are included in the mix.  

Christine Kern, who has served Select Specialty in Springfield as director of business development since the hospital opened, said she works closely with southwest Missouri’s hospital systems and skilled-nursing facilities to inform the health systems about Select Specialty’s services.

“For the longest time, we’ve had waiting lists, so we know there is a need for this particular patient population,” Kern said, adding that an aging population is a prime driver of demand.

She said on average 40 of its 44 beds are filled, which is helping to drive the hospital’s expansion plans. Select Specialty is currently undergoing a 16,000-square-foot, $2.5 million expansion that will add 16 beds, a nursing station and a larger cafeteria.

The plans mimic the more than $300 million in recent and future projects Cox and Mercy are behind locally.

Even so, annual profit margins can be as low as 2 percent, DeJean said.

“There are better money-making ventures than this,” DeJean said. “We’re here for the greater good.”[[In-content Ad]]