PRMC Home Health and Hospice Taken over by Oklahoma-based Company

On May 16^th Paris Regional Medical Center Home Health and Hospice will cease to offer home health care and hospice services to the residents of northeast Texas and southeast Oklahoma.

On that date, PRMC relinquishes ownership of the operation to Antlers, Oklahoma Mays Home Health Inc., according to Jay R. Lindsey, executive director of Texas operations for Mays Home Care.

Established in 1991, Mays Housecall Home Health, Inc. currently has 20 offices in Oklahoma, including Hugo, OK, and offers home health care services in 51 counties in the state.

“This is our first foray out of Oklahoma,” said Lindsey. “We’ve pretty much covered the eastern half of Oklahoma and, geographically, it made sense to move into Texas.”

The move follows existing relationships that the company has made with doctors and hospitals in northeast Texas, through their clients in counties along the northern side of the Red River.

Owner of Mays Home Health is Lola Mays Young; the chief executive officer is Erik Drennen, and the chief financial officer is Bill Ragsdale. The company employs approximately 1,000 employees at all levels of skill, training and job description, and has a client base of approximately 3,000 patients.

While the operation in Paris will no longer be run by Paris Regional Medical Center, Lindsey says Mays anticipates entering into an affiliation with the hospital once the takeover is complete.

“Mays chose to purchase this operation because of its quality data,” said Lindsey. “When we began to look at the numbers, it was apparent that PMRCHH&H was meeting or exceeding state requirements in all categories.”

A chart of these numbers provided by Mays and drawn from figures taken from the medicare.gov web site shows that PRMC Home Health and Hospice exceeds both state and federal requirements in several activities of daily living, including percentage of patients who get better at walking or moving around, percentage of patients who have less pain when moving around, percentage of patients who get better at bathing. Other areas compared in which PRMC excelled include percentage of patients who are short of breath less often and percentage of patients who stay home after an episode of home health care ends.

PRMC Home Health has favorable numbers, meeting or exceeding either state or federal requirements in other areas, including percentage of patients who get better at getting in and out of bed and percentage of patients who get better at taking medicines correctly.

PRMC, in areas where lower numbers indicate better results, also came in under the state and national averages in percentage of patients who had to be admitted to the hospital and percentage of patients who nee urgent unplanned medical care.

Also posted in the chart were the standings of the three next largest home health care providers in the area. Together, these three organizations, which were not identified in the charts, total approximately 75 percent of the marketplace in northeast Texas and southeast Oklahoma, yet PRMC in most cases posted better numbers than any or all of the other three.

“Our home health agency is better than any of the others in the area with regard to quality of service and quality of nursing staff,” said Lindsey.

Physicians and healthcare professionals agree that recuperating at home heightens emotional well-being and shortens the convalescence period, as well as reducing the overall cost of recovering from illness or injury.

“Home health care offers familiar surroundings,” said Lindsey, when asked why patients should choose home health care over hospitalization or a stay in a nursing home. “There’s a comfort level there. Visitors can come and go as the patient sees fit.”

“With home health care, patients can establish a relationship with one nurse, not two or three different nurses each day in a roster that changes every three or four days,” said Lindsey. “This contributes to a continuity of care and service that makes the patient more comfortable.”

Other reasons to choose home health care include reduced expense, faster healing time and less risk of contracting hospital-borne infections. Home health care providers offer individual management of the patient. They monitor the effects of the patient’s medications, check on their progress and set up regimens that fit the patient.

“Family care is very important in home health care,” said Lindsey. “We educate and care for the family as well as the patient and teach them to help care for their loved one.”

In a time when prescriptions have become more costly and insurance plans that cover prescriptions have become more confusing and demanding, the resources of a home healthcare provider can prove invaluable in saving time, money and energy when taking medicines are essential to better health.

“Mays is focused on staying abreast of the latest legislation concerning prescription plans and teaching all of the employee in all of the branches to understand and work with the system,” said Lindsey. “Everyone at Mays is very knowledgeable and well-trained in all the prescription plans. We offer our patients resources, answers and help in dealing with the plans.”

Mays Home Health, according to Lindsey, saw the problem coming, and knew that the new prescription plans were going to be a problem. Mays began preparing to deal with it years ago, holding employee seminars, web-nars and training sessions in a wide variety of state and federal guidelines, rules and regulations.

While most of the patients seen by home health workers are the elderly, some are younger, but patients of all ages benefit from home health care.

“We have clients of all ages, from birth to the elderly,” said Lindsey. “We offer care for post-surgical patients, wound care, patients with chronic illnesses and birth defects that leave them in need of constant care and support. We also offer their families the same support and care and offer them education in how to care for and support their loved one.”

Another aspect of home health care is the hospice service that Mays will offer to residents of Northeast Texas and Southeast Oklahoma.

Hospice care offers many of the same services as home health care, but hospice care offers support to the dying, rather than those on the road to recovery. Hospice care offers spiritual support, psychological counseling, pain management and other palliative care for the patient, as well as support and comfort to the family and loved ones of the patient.

Once Mays Home Health takes over the operation from PRMC, the company plans to continue the same high quality care and service that the organization has always offered, while bringing new ideas and technology to the table.

One example of this is remote monitoring using the patient’s own telephones to monitor their conditions around the clock.

“The patents are trained to take their own measurements of blood pressure, blood sugar, and blood oxygen. Then they upload the information into the Telehealth system,” said Lindsey. “This system reduces costs by limiting visits from health care personnel until there is need.”

“This will work especially well in our area because we are so rural,” said Lindsey. “And the patient is comforted in knowing that they can be monitored 24/7.”

Another innovation that Lindsey expects to see in the future is “pay for performance,” an incentive system of healthcare payments.

“With ‘pay for performance,’ Medicare, which covers most home health services, will base payment for home health providers and other health providers on results,” said Lindsey. “Providers will be reimbursed on the basis of how soon their patients get better, how much improvement in their conditions is made and the effectiveness of the care provided.”