By Lora Mays, Product Marketing Manager
From the Affordable Care Act to changing laws and regulations, the landscape for you, as a healthcare landlord, continues to become more complex.
After all, you encompass several roles within the organization, from controlling space within medical office buildings and within the overall hospital campus. With the aging population and an increasing focus on health, the need for space continues to grow for healthcare organizations across the world.
Managing your leases in the most effective way possible can maximize your space usage. By leveraging a model that follows a timeshare structure or session leases, you have the opportunity to share office space in a way that is more convenient for your physicians and overall organization.
Timeshare leasing and tracking.
Timeshare leases are in no way new to the healthcare industry, but they are becoming more heavily analyzed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) to ensure they are meeting regulations in place, such as Stark Law and the Anti-Kickback Statute.
While timeshare leasing makes it easier to coordinate with doctors, it can add complexity to your leasing environment. For instance, a doctor may only lease out a particular space for one or two days a week and, without appropriate tracking, it can be impossible to know who will be using the space and when. Leveraging an automated lease management solution, you can simplify the tracking process while managing all leases through a centralized database, making it easy to pull reports to demonstrate adherence to specific regulations.
As such, under regulations like the Stark Law and Anti-Kickback Statute, using a technology solution to manage your leases can ensure that you are adhering to the mandates set forth within these guidelines.
This may include:
- Ensuring that the lease term is for at least one year.
- Setting rental charges over the term of the lease in advance.
- Specifying the premise that is included in the lease terms.
Other challenges that healthcare landlords face when managing timeshare leases in healthcare include:
Defining the leased premises.
Understanding what space is used by whom, and when, serves as the basis of timeshare leases. It’s essential that you can clearly define the leased area in a written agreement to fit regulatory requirements.
Knowing the schedule of the particular space.
CMS regulations mandate specifics around leasing a particular space, especially making sure that there is no overlap between physicians. Having an automated lease management solution in place can ensure that this does not occur and simplify lease tracking abilities.
Tracking additional space and services.
Leases may be noncompliant if physicians are able to use other areas within the space that are not dictated within the lease agreement, such as a closet. Even this can lead to violation of the Stark Law, which means that it must be tracked and accounted for within lease agreements.
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