“Imagine being in rural Iowa and you might be 30 or 40 minutes from the closest critical access hospital, let alone a hospital that might have the specialty or geriatrician that you need being a senior,” Schema said. “Our virtual hospital and command center being built here in Sioux Falls … will allow us to connect with specialties that just aren’t available today. I see it as a way to potentially transform the way care is delivered,” Nate Schema said.
“Everything is on the table for us being connected to our acute-care partners,” Schema said.
When it comes to payment, the organization is using its Sanford integration to gain a better foothold in managed care. “We’re able to bundle those agreements together to really make a splash and push back on some of those managed care agreements that we weren’t able to do as a stand-alone long-term care provider,” Schema said.