Healthcare expenditures have mushroomed to $2.5 trillion at a time when one in six people under 65 are uninsured. Auction rate securities and tax-exempt bonds have retracted as the credit market has entered the deep freeze, cutting off access to low-interest capital. Thirty-one billion dollars in uncompensated care annually and the decline in investment revenue have eroded financial ratios and absolute liquidity. At the same time, Medicare and Medicaid are in a shortfall and the recession has softened demand as people put off elective procedures.

Through it all, hospitals must focus on their abiding mission--to help their patients live longer and live better; to improve the quality of care and reduce preventable events; to build powerful and positive physician relationships; to meet the standards of Medicare and Medicaid’s incentive program for reimbursements; and to improve procedures to achieve better efficiencies, information and programs to manage costs and improve outcomes.

Alter+Care alleviates the uncertainty and financial pressures of these unsteady currents by saying yes in an era of no. Today, we are working with hospitals and health systems nationwide, putting our strong cash position to support your ambulatory care objectives. Our banking relationships that reach back longer than a quarter century and our reputation as one of the nation’s preeminent real estate firms have allowed us to move confidently through at least four recessions. We develop, finance and own ambulatory treatment facilities so you can focus resources on core assets and patient care. What’s more, we maintain sterling relationships with our tenants so hospitals can be assured that their most valuable resource – the nurses, doctors, technicians and administrators who do the work---are always cared for.

The Healthcare Village

The cost of not innovating and improving the level of care is huge: outpatient visits have mushroomed to 600 million per year, straining the system; preventable errors amount to $22 billion in lost revenue; medication errors cost a further $3.5 billion; and the overall cost of healthcare is projected to grow to $4 trillion annually by 2016. Add to this the fact that 21% of a hospitals’ budget is spent on administration—mostly billing and paperwork --and it is clear that a better way is not just preferred; it is the key to fixing an ailing system.

Alter+Care’s Healthcare Village is the next generation of ambulatory care. A first-class outpatient environment anchored by a high-traffic wellness center or freestanding ED, the Healthcare Village creates synergistic, holistic care fusing preventative health with diagnostics with testing with primary care with specialized treatment so hospitals can reside services in a lower-cost, outpatient environment that has the cohesiveness of impatient care. This allows hospitals to avoid excessive utilization of technology, personnel and services. Additionally, Healthcare Villages allow hospitals to collocate aligned services to create Centers of Excellence in such high-revenue specialties as cancer and orthopedics. These campuses are an effective way to bring services to new communities and drive referrals back to the hospital system. In total, a Healthcare Village spells out greater efficiency, greater cohesiveness between inpatient and outpatient care, and ultimately, great outcomes.

Quality, patient safety and the right service lines are the most pressing concerns of hospitals and the engine of their revenue. And the people at the heart of this strategy are the physicians. Alter+Care understands the challenges that constrain doctors – the lack of access to capital to grow their practices and enhance services, the impossible hours they keep between inpatient and outpatient care, and their dwindling reimbursements.

Working with the hospital, Alter+Care carefully builds ambulatory healthcare facilities that powerfully serve the mission of recruiting the finest doctors. This means creating a physician specialty mix supported by diagnostics, imaging and other services that mimics the seamlessness and effectiveness of inpatient care. Alter+Care does this by first examining the marketplace with our healthcare clients to determine physician demand, quantity and types of specialists, patient population trends and service-line potential to develop a strategic ambulatory care plan.

Once we define the overarching mission, we design and implement a leasing strategy, which relieves the hospital from the burden of functioning as a landlord to its physician tenants. With our staff of dedicated experts in physician relationships, Alter+Care structures favorable lease terms, including joint ventures and revenue-sharing relationships that serve as enormous incentives to attract the finest providers.

Once in an Alter+Care building, physicians benefit from our award-winning branding and image marketing campaigns designed to promote their individual practices and the entire continuum of services within the facility. This raises the profile of the sponsoring hospital within the local community and serves as a powerful source of referrals for inpatient services.