TriVent Healthcare —
Center of Excellence Strategy
Build a Regional Ventilator Liberation Center of Excellence — Without Building the Program Yourself
A new service line, new revenue stream, and measurable clinical differentiator for your community.
At a Glance
TriVent Center of Excellence — Partner Benefits| Partner Benefit | What It Looks Like | Why It Matters |
|---|---|---|
| New Inpatient Service Line | 9–12 bed dedicated vent liberation unit | New DRG revenue from a patient population your hospital does not currently attract |
| Patients Brought to You | TriVent sources referrals from surrounding acute care hospitals | Backfills beds and fills capacity that would otherwise be unused |
| High Case Mix Index | Transferred-in patients typically carry CMI 5.0–6.5 | Boosts overall CMI, reimbursement, and publicly reported complexity scoring |
| Clinical Reputation Lift | Your hospital becomes the regional destination for the most complex vent patients | Community brand, referral network, and physician recruiting benefit |
| Compliance-Safe Structure | Flat-fee engagement — no volume-based or referral-based payment | Cleanly structured under AKS / Stark safe-harbor principles |
Executive Summary
Most community and mid-sized hospitals do not see enough prolonged-vent patients of their own to justify a dedicated liberation unit. But prolonged-vent patients exist in your region — they are sitting in the ICUs of surrounding hospitals, consuming beds, driving cost, and eventually being transferred to long-term acute care hospitals where wean rates are ~50% and 90-day mortality approaches 40%. Those patients, and the DRG revenue that comes with them, are currently leaving your community entirely.
TriVent Healthcare builds and operates regional ventilator liberation Centers of Excellence inside partner hospitals. We bring the clinical model, the operating team, the weaning protocols, and — critically — the referral engine that helps route patients from surrounding hospitals into your unit. You provide the beds and the inpatient infrastructure. The partnership creates a new, high-CMI, high-margin service line that did not exist in your community before.
The Strategic Opportunity
In any given metropolitan region, thousands of prolonged-vent patients are produced annually across surrounding acute care hospitals. In most markets, these patients are routed to one or two regional LTACHs, where outcomes are demonstrably worse and case management discharge planners are increasingly looking for better options.
A TriVent Center of Excellence positions your hospital as that better option — not as an LTACH, but as a short-term acute care destination with superior clinical outcomes, preserved eligibility for downstream inpatient rehabilitation, and a demonstrably better patient and family experience.
The Partnership Model
The TriVent Center of Excellence model is structured as a flat-fee clinical operating partnership. No payment component is tied to patient volume, patient referrals, or clinical outcomes — a design deliberately chosen to cleanly align with Anti-Kickback Statute and Stark Law safe-harbor principles.| You Provide (Host Hospital) | TriVent Provides |
|---|---|
| Dedicated physical unit space (typically 9–12 beds) | Unit leadership — medical director, unit manager, care manager |
| Hospital-employed physicians (pulmonary / critical care) | Dedicated respiratory therapy team |
| Hospital-employed ICU-trained RNs | Dedicated PT, OT, and speech-language pathology |
| Inpatient infrastructure, pharmacy, imaging, labs | RT-driven weaning protocol co-developed with your physicians |
| Billing, revenue cycle, and case management | Training, protocols, and quality assurance program |
| Executive sponsorship and operational integration | Patient referral engine from surrounding hospitals |
How TriVent Sources Patients: The Referral Engine
The most important question for any host-hospital CFO evaluating a TriVent Center of Excellence is: “Will the unit actually fill?” The answer depends on TriVent’s ability to source patients from outside the host hospital. This is the core of our operating capability.
- Field-based clinical liaisons with established relationships at surrounding acute care hospitals.
- Together, we will educate payers as to the benefits of the program. Once they learn how they can save >$50k per episode of care, they will seek us out as a preferred option.
- Direct engagement with ICU case managers, discharge planners, and pulmonology teams at referring facilities.
- CE-credited educational programming that builds clinical awareness of the VLU as a discharge option.
- Frictionless intake: our clinical liaisons will obtain prior-auth, will use a standardized referral packet, and rapid pre-acceptance assessment.
- Transparent outcomes reporting back to referring hospitals, reinforcing the pipeline over time.
Critically, this referral activity is structured to comply with all applicable fraud and abuse regulations. No payment, discount, or in-kind benefit flows between TriVent, the host hospital, and referring hospitals based on referral volume.
Proven Outcomes: The UAB Benchmark
The TriVent model has been demonstrated at scale at UAB Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama, one of the top three tracheostomy centers in the United States. Over 1,023 consecutive PMV patients treated from October 2016 through December 2025:| Outcome Measure | TriVent VLU Result | National Benchmark |
|---|---|---|
| Ventilator Liberation Rate | 86.2% | ~50–60% |
| 30-Day Readmission Rate | 7.2% | 35–40% |
| Mean VLU Length of Stay | 21.7 days | 30+ days |
| Case Mix Index (Unit) | 15.8 | Varies |
| Disposition to Lower Care / Home | High | Low |
While the UAB partnership is structured around UAB’s own high-volume patient base, the same clinical operating model and the same outcomes have been observed across TriVent programs since 1991, including regional hub programs that rely primarily on referred-in patients.
Economic Model: A 12-Bed Center of Excellence
The following illustrates the annual economics of a 12-bed TriVent Center of Excellence for a mid-sized host hospital. Figures are directional and use conservative occupancy and payer-mix assumptions. A hospital-specific pro forma is prepared as part of the partnership evaluation.| Line Item | Assumption | Annual Value |
|---|---|---|
| Bed Capacity | 12 beds | — |
| Target Occupancy | 83% | ~3,600 patient-days / year |
| Avg. Length of Stay | ~21 days | ~173 discharges / year |
| Case Mix Index (Unit Level) | 5.0 – 6.5 | High-weight DRG mix |
| Blended DRG Reimbursement per Case | DRG 207 | $45K – $85K |
| Gross Inpatient Revenue Indicative | — | $7.7M – $14.7M |
| Contribution Margin (Host Hospital) Indicative | After direct cost & TriVent fee | $1.1M – $8M |
| CMI Lift Across Inpatient Population | Concentration effect | Positive, variable |
| Readmission Penalty Impact | Sub-8% vs. 35–40% baseline | Penalty reduction |
The economic model scales with occupancy. Because TriVent’s fee is flat, the marginal contribution from each additional patient referred in accrues disproportionately to the host hospital.
Compliance Structure
The TriVent Center of Excellence model is deliberately structured to be clean under the Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) and the Stark Law:
- The fee paid by the host hospital to TriVent is a fixed, flat engagement fee — not variable with patient volume, referrals, or clinical outcomes.
- No payment, discount, or in-kind benefit flows between TriVent and referring hospitals based on referral activity.
- Physicians who admit to or consult on the VLU are hospital-employed or contracted through existing host-hospital structures; there is no independent financial relationship with TriVent.
- All arrangements are documented under written agreements subject to host hospital legal and compliance review.
Implementation Timeline
| Phase | Duration | Key Milestones |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Evaluation & Pro Forma | 4–6 weeks | Site assessment, market analysis, hospital-specific financial model |
| 2. Agreement & Governance | 4–8 weeks | Master services agreement, compliance review, governance structure |
| 3. Unit Buildout & Staffing | 9–20 weeks | Physical unit readiness, TriVent team hiring and onboarding, protocol co-development |
| 4. Soft Launch & Referral Activation | 4–8 weeks | Initial admissions, referral engine activation with surrounding hospitals |
| 5. Full Run-Rate Operations | Ongoing | Target occupancy, quarterly outcomes reporting, continuous improvement |
A Word from Our Clinical Partners
“Better outcomes come from better systems—Trivent Healthcare demonstrates that commitment to safe, effective care. This is the best clinical pathway I’ve seen for patients suffering from PMV.”
— Dr. Kevin Dsouza, Director Inpatient Pulmonary Services, UAB Hospital
The Next Step: A Partnership Discovery Session
The first step toward a TriVent Center of Excellence is a 45-minute Partnership Discovery Session with your executive team — typically the CFO, the VP of Strategy or Business Development, and a senior clinical sponsor. In that session, we walk through the operating model, the compliance structure, the referral engine, and what a directional financial model could look like for your hospital.
If there is strategic fit, TriVent will prepare a hospital-specific pro forma and a formal evaluation timeline at no cost.
To request a Partnership Discovery Session, contact:
TriVent Healthcare | triventhealthcare.com | [snimah@triventhc.com / 561-699-0899]
Appendix: Frequently Asked Questions
What kind of hospital is the right fit? Mid-sized community and regional hospitals with available inpatient bed capacity, credentialed pulmonary and critical care medical staff, and a strategic interest in expanding complex-care service lines. Typical unit size is 9–12 beds.
What if we don’t currently have enough PMV patients of our own? That is the point of the model. The unit is designed to backfill with referred-in patients from surrounding acute care hospitals. TriVent’s referral engine is core to the partnership.
Is this an LTACH? No. A TriVent Center of Excellence is a short-term acute care unit embedded within a partner hospital. It preserves eligibility for downstream inpatient rehabilitation (which LTACH admissions typically forfeit) and produces substantially better wean and mortality outcomes than LTACH benchmarks.
How is this different from what our ICU already does? A general ICU is built to stabilize acutely unstable patients. Ventilator weaning is a distinct clinical discipline requiring dedicated staffing, protocolized care, and high therapeutic intensity that general ICUs are not designed to deliver. The TriVent model consolidates the PMV population into a single purpose-built environment with a team whose sole focus is liberation.
TriVent Healthcare | Confidential | triventhealthcare.com