Kansas Health Institute | Information For Policy Makers. Health for Kansans.

TOPEKA — Former Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson said he has learned a few things since moving to Washington, D.C. and becoming one of the nursing home industry’s top lobbyists.

“In business, if you build a better widget you will succeed,” he said Wednesday, addressing a breakfast session of the Kansas Health Care Association’s annual winter conference. “But in politics that’s not the way it works. Simply being right is not enough. There are many good ideas never see the light of day and there are many bad ideas that make it into law.”

Parkinson, chief executive at the National Health Care Association, said that in the next three to five years, nursing homes are going to have to find ways to provide low-cost, high-quality care in a rapidly changing marketplace.

The industry also is going to have to figure out how to make itself better heard.

“We’ve got to go out and tell our story,” he said. “We have to be in every state capitol. We have to be all over The Hill (Congress). If we aren’t, we can’t win.”

The National Health Care Association represents more than 11,000 nursing homes, assisted living facilities, and long-term care facilities for the developmentally disabled.

Parkinson said he was confident that in the coming years, government will not “turn its back on older people,” and that Medicaid and Medicare will continue to fund long-term care.

“But here’s what’s going to change,” he said. “Government will quit paying for everything in virtually every sector.”

Instead, he said, payments will be based on outcomes.

Nursing homes, he said, will have to “ramp up” efforts to reduce readmissions to hospitals, reduce the use of anti-psychotic drugs, cut staff turnover, and increase resident satisfaction.

“We can’t just be a low-cost solution,” he said. “We have to also be a high-quality solution.”

Already, he said, Medicaid and Medicare are penalizing hospitals with above-average readmission rates, an indicator of below-average quality.

“This is not something to fear, this an incredible opportunity,” Parkinson said, noting that nursing homes could secure a niche in the health reform marketplace by figuring out which hospitals were being penalized and helping them develop plans for lowering their readmission rates.

At the same time, he said, nursing homes must move away from being stand-alone, long-term care facilities and instead, become community-based resource centers for the elderly.

“We have to adapt, we have to diversify,” Parkinson said, noting that nursing homes could offer wellness checks, physical therapy, home health services, short-term post- acute care stays, or hospice care.

Parkinson, a Democrat and a former state legislator, worked in the nursing home industry for 15 years before becoming lieutenant governor. He succeeded Gov. Kathleen Sebelius when she left office in 2009 to become U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services.

About 200 KHCA members attended the morning session, which also included remarks by Kansas Department on Aging Secretary Shawn Sullivan.