Postpartum care is critical to ensuring the long term well-being of both mother and child. However, maternity services are often loss leaders inside a given hospital system.
In this article, we will discuss six strategies for hospitals to solve financial problems in postpartum care. By implementing these strategies, hospitals can improve their financial stability and help maternity units avoid closure resulting in expanding maternity deserts across the country.
Capacity Management
Capacity and staffing management is the biggest financial challenge hospitals face in postpartum care. It is imperative that clinicians (doctors and nurses) care for high risk patients. But hospital margins are thin. To optimize resources, non-clinical staff should be available to manage low risk care. Low risk postpartum support includes doulas, lactation consultants, mental health coaches, nutrition coaches, and care coordinators.
Strategy: Deploy highly experienced, non-licensed postpartum support to deliver low risk care, easing the burden on clinicians.
Reducing Readmissions
One major financial challenge hospitals face in postpartum care is increased readmissions. Issues with hypertension, depression, cardiovascular health, and infection, to name a few, can emerge before the first postpartum checkup, which is typically 6-weeks after childbirth. Postpartum support services, especially those complemented with postpartum remote blood pressure monitoring, can catch, escalate and initiate management of these issues. This decreases avoidable readmissions, which benefits mothers, infants, clinicians, and hospitals in our stretched healthcare system. Capacity management and reducing readmissions are tied.
Strategy: Build capacity to gain leverage outside of the clinical setting, where most postpartum deaths occur. By avoiding unnecessary readmissions, hospitals improve their bottom line.
Post-Discharge Educational Support
Hospitals want to educate mothers about the signs of postpartum complications. Preventing complications impacts Emergency Department utilization and readmission rates. However, many hospitals rely on antiquated post-discharge information packets/folders to deliver this education. To improve outcomes, hospitals should share digital content for the common issues mothers experience. When designed effectively, digital content is more engaging and easier to make available in multiple languages, which are key to meeting the patient's needs. Patients can access a library of information, including videos, articles, classes, and warm lines for followup questions.
Strategy: To help detect and address issues early, consider a partner with curated postpartum educational content. Use telemedicine and in-person services to follow up on the content with live support and consultations.
Reputation Management
A hospital's reputation plays a pivotal role in its financial health. Positive and negative experiences during postpartum care significantly impact a hospital's reputation. Consistent outreach by dedicated postpartum support professionals dramatically improves patient satisfaction during a lonely and difficult time. Smooth referrals and consults between staff quickly turn a breastfeeding latch check into an opportunity for perinatal mood and anxiety disorder screening, and a follow up appointment with a mental health coach. Hospitals should prioritize patient satisfaction and implement systems to enhance the overall experience for mothers.
Strategy: Postpartum services that extend beyond clinical settings, to a patient’s home, are key. When these service lines are connected and referrals are seamless, patients are delighted and share their positive experiences with others planning where to give birth.
Doula-Facilitated Reduced Length of Stay
Prolonged hospital stays strain hospital resources and increase costs. Hospitals focused on optimizing postpartum support services can reduce the length of stay without compromising a patient's well-being. Research shows that involving birth doulas can reduce the length of stay, the likelihood of cesarean delivery and the risk of complications among low risk patients. Some hospitals are not able to employ birth doulas, so it is important to ensure outside doulas are welcome to accompany patients and that referrals to doulas are available.
Strategy: By streamlining access to doulas, hospitals can reduce the length of stay, free up resources, and improve their financial performance.
Care Coordination and Collaboration
Managing a network of partners can add to operational and administrative burden. With care coordination specialists, hospitals gain leverage in two ways. First, they are a single point of contact for partner referrals. Second, they ensure that every aspect of postpartum care is documented correctly.
Strategy: Consider a single referral partner with a network of postpartum support specialists, including care coordination.
The Mahmee Membership is purpose-built with these strategies in mind. Learn more about how your hospital can improve its financial performance with our team of postpartum support professionals. Contact us to set up a call at hello@mahmee.com and visit www.mahmee.com.