Today we’d like to introduce you to Logan Andrews.
Hi Logan, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I started out as a Director of Nursing at a small rural 80-bed skilled nursing facility in Trenton, FL. I worked in this role for about 7 years before becoming a Family Nurse Practitioner and opening my own business. What lead me to do this was the need for in-home primary care. I saw many patients returning unnecessarily to the ER or hospital after being discharged home from the skilled nursing facility and being home only about 14-30 days. Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) started imposing insurance payment cuts to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) that had a high number of re-hospitalizations that occurred 30-days or sooner from discharge. After doing a study that focused on unnecessary or avoidable hospitalizations, I found many of these patients were returning to the hospital due to not having transportation to a primary care provider (PCP), unable to find a PCP that could see them within 7-14 days of discharge, or simply had no assistance to get out of the home due to being homebound. This lead me to want to combat this issue in my rural area by becoming a Nurse Practitioner and opening my own practice providing Home-Based Primary Care (House-Calls). By doing so, our patients were able to continue receiving home health therapy services as these organizations require a face-to-face visit progress note from a medical provider within 30-days of discharge from a hospital or SNF. These patients were also able to have medication reconciliation performed, have any medication re-ordered, and follow through provided for their medical issues that had just been treated for in either the hospital or SNF. This lead to a SIGNIFIANT reduction in unnecessary ER and hospitalization use in these patients. We were able to provide x-rays, bloodwork, ultrasounds, and EKGs all in the comfort of the patient’s home.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Insurance credentialing was a big hurdle to overcome as you must be credentialed with specific insurance companies in order to receive payment for your services. Another big challenge was obtaining funding to start a nurse practitioner owned practice as there is currently no banks offering lending for a start-up for nurse practitioner owned practices. Physicians however can easily obtain funding as they are basically allowed to use their medical license as collateral. This is not true for NPs as most banks want to see at least 3-5 years of business tax returns before lending money which you obviously will NOT have when trying to start a new medical practice.
We’ve been impressed with Andrews Healthcare Consulting, but for folks who might not be as familiar, what can you share with them about what you do and what sets you apart from others?
Andrews Healthcare was started in October of 2021 and as of today we now cover about 16 counties in rural North Central Florida serving over 3,500 patients. We started as strictly home based primary care and have now incorporated home based psychiatric mental health services as well. What sets us apart from other primary care offices is the fact that we bring healthcare directly to our patients in the comfort of their own home through our house-call program. We see patients with multiple different insurances plans including Medicaid. Currently we are most proud of being able to service those patients with quality healthcare that if we were not seeing them, would not be seen by a healthcare provider otherwise. Our program has really improved access to quality medical care in the rural communities of North Central Florida. Andrews Healthcare Consulting is a multi-specialty group practice made up of Nurse Practitioners with a goal to provide patient-centered quality health care services to all ages.
So, before we go, how can our readers or others connect or collaborate with you? How can they support you?
People can help support us by bringing awareness to these types of services in your areas and hospital systems to further improve access to medical care for those who need it. Banks should also open up more funding and loan programs designed specifically for Nurse Practitioner practice owners so we can get the same business loans as physicians. Nurse Practitioners are providing the care in areas and to patient populations that tend to be unfavorable to physicians.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.andrewshealthcareconsulting.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndrewsHealthcareConsulting/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/logan-andrews-rn/
- Youtube: https://youtu.be/sZy1fJqnSbo?feature=shared
- Other: https://www.nursingworld.org/foundation/rninitiative/blog/nurse-practitioners-and-the-future-of-health-care/?fbclid=IwAR2r5Q5vV68BM6VycRExRlMPPJD8r4nH7RAosRZ2xlTJcmOPpwaFuggugYQ&mibextid=Zxz2cZ
