Introduction
The Gentiva Health Company has been the leading health care company in the United States and this has been attributed highly to its best-defined organizational policies. As America’s leader in the provision of home care health services, the company has been delivering an expansion of healthcare in homes for almost 40 years. The attribute of an enormous and excellent arrangement of homecare services include nursing aspects of management of disease and pain, physical activity and vocalization therapy and support with daily actions in the health care industry which is related to the highly skilled team of clinical acquaintances and management.
The annual turn of patients who are served by the Gentiva Home Health Company is nearly half a million patients from at least 380 locations in not less than 39 states (information from Gentiva Health Services, Inc., 2009). The Gentiva family involves over a dozen companies, which comprises the following, Carolina, Heritage, Donelson, Horizon, Emerald Coast, Hospice of Charleston, Lazarus House, Medical, Mid South, Ogeechee, Physicians, Tar Heel, Gentiva, Gilbert’s, Health field, Total Care and Wiregrass.
The full range of clinical services offered by this company in conjunction with these other companies are diverse and they range from, Skilled nursing, Physical fitness support, Occupational advice, and speech or language therapy, disease and pain management, Cardiac and pulmonary health care services, Respiratory services and home medical equipment, Infusion management techniques of treatment, hospital services, and nervous disease rehabilitation. The company started initially after the establishment of the Physician Home Health Care (PHHC), an assembly of clinical physicians in 1984, who operated in three regions serving twelve Colorado counties, which comprised the Colorado Springs, Denver and Pueblo areas. Later on these acquisitions led to the extensions of the areas of operations and service of the health care organization up to 38 states. The great expansion and profitability are shown by the high unedited 2007 net revenues for PHHC which were just about $9.4 million, with almost 83% resulting from their Medicare repayment, though, this seemed not to have a large contribution to the successful financial year (redOrbit.com, (2nd June, 2008).
Gentiva Home Health Company and its positive ethical and social behavior
The Gentiva Home Health Company has impacted so much on the health care industry of the United States due to its best placed ethical and social behaviors adopted by the organization. The health care services offered by this group of physicians, that is PHHC, are provided to the community based on the outpatient terms whereby they give the services to their patients at their homes. This is perceived as the most effective means through which patients can get quick recovery as they are subjected to their locality which comprises of their loved ones.
This follows the development of efficient health care in the past especially in the regulation of hospital resources, expansion of regulated health care services, and the changes in the federal regulatory guidelines in the provision of the home health care services and other related clinical services (redOrbit.com 2nd June, 2008). This has led to many of the diagnostic and treatment events plus other restorative therapies and rehabilitative management procedures, services which were initially provided in the hospitalized environment but now have been extended into the outpatient sector and also in the rehabilitation centers. Research that has been done in the recent times to investigate and support the importance of the home health care services has indicated that there has been improvement of both physical and psychological outcomes and also evidence of important cost savings.
The policies of Gentiva Health Services accept that all patients are legible for home care services regardless of age, race, color, national origin, religion, sex, and disability or any other category secluded by law, or decisions concerning complex commands. The information that is kept as a medical record for a particular client/patient helps to establish the foundation of planning the patient’s care and treatment and it’s a channel for communication between individual health professionals who are involved in disease management of the patient.
This makes the patient understand his/her record of treatment and the way the information is used, what usually helps in the achievement of accuracy, better be aware of who, what, when, where and why people may access your medical record in order for the patient to make more knowledgeable decisions when authorizing revelations to the medical records of other people. The patient is however entitled to privacy for the medical records kept by this organization and the disclosure should be his respective authority as the information belongs to the respective patient.
This indicates that your health record is the physical property of the healthcare service provider in question, but the actual health information belongs to the client, unless otherwise required by law to do so. Hence, the patient has the right to; apply for a restriction on any particular uses and disclosures of her medical information kept by the organization and this has been accepted by Gentiva, apply for the amendments to your medical record, both for clinical and demographic areas, check and apply for the medical records, access and accountability of medical information disclosures, ask for a disclosure of medical records by alternative means/locations and also cancel the initial approval for disclosure or utilization of health information except to the current extent.
Thus as the responsibility of the company to the people it has also clearly provided clients with the legal duties of the company and privacy code regarding the information collected and maintained on the patient. They accommodate rational needs for communicating health information by alternative ways, new notice posting in the website which is (www.gentiva.com) and lastly authorize to change their practices for new ones in the effective protection of the kept information of the patient and consequently mail the changes to the clients. The information kept is used for treatment purposes and via records indicating the course of treatment which is best appropriate.
There is clear definition for the use of the information and this indicates that the health care information should be subjected for the following uses; determine the course of treatment best suitable for a particular patient, obtaining the payments for the services offered, facilitating the provision of operations necessary for the enhanced quality care to all patients, stating treatment alternative available for the benefits of the business associates, communication with the family members and friends of the patients, for research purposes and marketing of the treatment techniques as well as for the use of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) companies for workers compensation, to the public or legal authorities in charge of disease surveillance and to law enforcement as the law indicates that the medical information should be disclosed to the health authorities for appropriate actions to avoid endangering the other population.
Significance of the Company’s positive ethical behavior to managers and managerial students
The company’s positive ethical behavior to managers and managerial students greatly enhances the quality of life of the respective patients at home due to implicated conflicts of ethics as they are able to remain at home in spite of the huge and complexity of the environment involved in-home health care. This is why many of the home health care service providers have devised ways through which they can be able to solve the crisis incurred in their area of work which is the ethical conflict. Therefore the positive ethical behavior in the company has been made possible through many factors and the major contribution where emphasis has been laid is the formulation of its strategies. Alongside with this projected change in preference in the choice of locality for delivery and reception of the health care services, the Gentiva Home Health Company has postulated a strategic way to handle its priorities in the gear of enhancement of the company’s growth. The Gentiva’s Strategic Priorities for Growth comprises the following strategies; Strengthening the Capacity and Productivity of the company, which has been frequently focused on practices inspiring clinician employment and custody by it trying to become a company of employer’s of choice.
Secondly, the company has aimed at Enhancement of Clinical and Customer Service Excellence which has applied along with its plentiful patient care initiatives and the executive is implementing a latest clinical management system planned to look into the needs of physicians who attend the chronically and acutely affected patients, accomplish advanced clinical results, develop satisfaction to patients as they are their clients and exploit available resources.
The company has also worked hard to Expand Specialty Programs, through continued expansion of its programs in their area of expertise in addition to its legacy on Health field markets. In addition to this, they have a driving Medicare expansion as the programs offer well-paying employment opportunities for the health care officers, predominantly the physical therapists. Again the company Maintains Medicare Growth via its focus on good home care services, a major factor that has been successfully been facilitated by the study of input from the continuing growth of specialty programs. Furthermore, the organization has embarked on Improving Commercial Pricing through continuous review of the company’s commercial associations for suitable pricing.
For instance, in situations where the association with other organizations has not met the projected profitability requirements surplus capacity is diverted into other enterprises. Lastly, the company has for a long time focused on the Growth of its Hospice by developing a significant stand expansion for hospice services through new branches openings in both the Gentiva and legacy Health field markets which do not require the certificates of need, and through prospective acquisitions mainly in areas which definitely requires the certificate of need (information from Gentiva Health Services, Inc., 2006). This is because the Hospice services offered by the company are highly complementary to home health care services and referrals and such services have become more efficient when duo services are offered by a single body.
What the future holds for Gentiva Home Health Company
The future of the company in the health care industry is very promising and this is why in the modern community the Home Health care has been seen as the better approach for the management of most of the clinical cases encountered on a day-to-day basis. The organization’s referrals sources for the Outpatient Health care and the other Related Services units are mostly offered in a more localized manner and they provide for Medicare or Medicaid patients in addition to referrals from other locally available health care organizations and insurers strategically deployed Gentiva sales personnel around the entire country.
The company’s own system of division offices provides straight services to patients, with all their health care services which include special programs, home nursing and related services, respiratory therapies, sanatorium services, and home medical equipment (HME) and infusion services (Seeking Alpha, 2008). This organization has a lot of positive perspectives in their future development and expansion of the health care services to the states where they are currently not available through the definition of their growth drivers in the industry.
The growth drivers set by the organization are an indication of self-positioning of the company itself in capitalizing on the rising demand for home health and related services anticipated in the coming years. This has been projected by the U.S. Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) that Medicare enrollment for these home-based health care services will increase from 39.6 million Americans in 2000 to 76.8 million by 2030 and also the CMS anticipates that national home health costs, as well as durable medical apparatus, will rise from more than $82 billion in 2007 to over $155 billion by 2017.
The Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services in America has projected that by 2050, the home health industry such as the one being practiced by Gentiva organization will involve 13 times the number of workers (which is approximated to be a half a million) it employed in 2000 (Gentiva Health Services, Inc., 2006). Besides the old age people who need most of these services at home and the expansion in the homecare health industry is likely to sprout. This is from the fact that patients have continued to prefer healthcare services in their homes, shifting family structures, expanding market place for specific homecare services, adopted health facilities and technological advances, growing physicians’ recognition of home care and the cost-effectiveness of home care over hospitalized health care.
This is estimated by the National Association for Home Care and Hospice which has indicated that the costs for a day in hospital and in a nursing expert facility are approximately more than $3,800 and $490 respectively. On contrary, the average homecare visit costs slightly over $100. To avert the challenges of competition in the health care industry, Gentiva as a health care organization has been commonly regarded as the industry leader because of its assortment and span of nationwide services.
This is however indicated from a very small portion of the home health market being served by public organizations and thus homecare in the United States is principally a greatly fragmented regional enterprise, for instance, it is roughly populated by about 13,000 agencies of which half are not certified Medicare. Consequently, its competition comes from regional and local home health care providers as well as from companies with a major existence in certain industry segments, for example, hospice and home medical equipment. Therefore the industry offers significant future opportunities for growth and consolidation as signified by the anticipated rise in home health and related spending projected by CMS (Gentiva Health Services, Inc., 2006). The major financial sponsors and supporters of the homecare program for the association include; Medicare, Medicaid, state and county programs, managed care organizations and insurance programs and other local companies mentioned early.
References
Gentiva Health Services, Inc. (2009), Gentiva health Services- the Nation’s leading provider of Hope: Great Healthcare has come Home, Web.
Gentiva Health Services, Inc. (2006), the Nation’s Leading Comprehensive Homecare Provider: Great Health care has come Home, Web.
redOrbit.com, (2008), Gentiva(R) Health Services Acquires Leading Colorado Home Health Provider,Web.
Seeking Alpha α (2008), Gentiva Health Services, Inc. (GTIV) Q3 2008 Earnings Call Transcript, Web.
The Gale Group, a part of Cengage Learning, (2008), Gentiva Health Services Accelerates Specialty Programs With Appointment of New Vice President; Newhouse Named to Head Launch of Additional Programs That Save Money and Speed Patient Recovery at Home: Goliath business knowledge in Demand.
Bio-Medicine (2009), Gentiva(R) Health Services to Present May 21 at 2008 Citi Investment Research Global Health Care Conference in New York.