Articles about throughput from NextBed.
Home health often misses the within-48-hours start window. Late starts cluster by day of week, distance, and payer rules—and they’re tied to higher ED returns. A simple 24-hour pre-call plus capacity check prevents many failures.
Medicare Advantage prior authorization volume, denial/appeal patterns, and new CMS rules create predictable discharge friction for IRF/SNF/Home Health. You can shorten LOS by timing and targeting prior auth smarter—not by working harder.
ED boarding isn’t just an operations headache. For older adults, longer time in the ED is linked to delirium, higher in-hospital mortality, longer inpatient stays, and a self-reinforcing occupancy cycle.
Margins aren’t moved by average cost per inpatient day—they’re driven by the marginal cost of one extra day and the opportunity cost of blocked beds.
