Are you a third-party healthcare administrator? A healthcare plan provider looking to take on more clients? Or even a clinician wanting to attract greater numbers of patients? Regardless of where you fit into the patient-facing, healthcare spectrum, “surgery nurse services” is likely something that you’re hearing more and more about.

To get us all speakin’ the same language, when we say “surgery nurse services, we mean: a program put in place and carried out by a special team to support patients throughout the entire surgical episode.

For third party administrators or case management companies, surgery nurse services may resemble the roles of “telephonic nurses” or “case management nurses”. However, the role differs in that surgery nurse services are specifically designed to make sure that patients are getting the most out of their surgery, and are optimizing themselves before surgery. In other words, instead of just the traditional clinical assessments, patient evaluations, and coordinating a return to work, disability length etc., nurse services can resemble more of a “coaching”, patient-focused role.

Round-Up: 5 Reasons it’s Time to Invest in Nurse Services

1. Patients Are More Satisfied

As you already know, regardless of the role you play in healthcare, patient satisfaction reigns king (or queen). Nurse services that go beyond just logistics and offer greater patient education, check-ins, and support, can increase how satisfied your population is. On top of this, dedicated teams that look after patients can flag those who may be at a greater risk for surgery and those who are less satisfied with the care they’re getting and intervene.

Patient satisfaction affects clinical outcomes, patient retention, and medical malpractice claims.

A lot of non-clinical factors go into how well a patient perceives his/ her experience, and as a payer or administrator, your front line impacts satisfaction. Nurse services are the “middle man” between the clinicians performing the procedure, and other stakeholders (e.g. payers). Nurse services helps to shape the entire experience and rectify potential problems before they snowball.

2. Reduce Costs

Building out a frontline team of surgery nurses who help patients get ready for surgery and offer support throughout recovery has many benefits. Not only do surgery nurses and surgery case managers aid in lowering a patient’s pre-op risk but work toward faster at-home recovery. These benefits are exasperated when surgery optimization/ PreHab programs, like PeerWell, are given to patients.

Studies have shown that patients who PreHab have a 29% reduction in post-acute care use. Patients who are supported and prepare for surgery are discharged home more quickly, return to work faster, and have lower overall post-acute care costs. Third party administrators who have surgery nurse services have seen excellent claim-level outcomes.

3. It’s a Market Differentiator

A surgery nurse services program, whether in a clinical, payer or administrator setting is a major selling point for patients and clients. Furthermore, adding that “cool factor” by taking advantage of impactful patient-facing technology cuts you above old school competitors, and shows that you’re cutting-edge, innovative, care about patient satisfaction, and invest in programs that will move the needle.

Working with a leading digital surgery optimization program, like PeerWell, is a proven draw for existing customers and patients. Evidence-based digital PreHab and ReHab program collects data, guides patients, and modernizes the surgical process. Can your closest competitors say they offer such a program to patients and clients?

4. Better for Aging Population

Aging patients need additional support navigating the healthcare system. This is especially true when it comes to older patients facing surgery. Older patients have more complex issues and greater risk, and a devoted team guiding them toward surgery and beyond is invaluable.

It’s estimated that before 2030, the number of people in the world aged 60 years or over is expected to grow by 56% from just over 900 million to nearly 1.5 billion.

Surgery optimization technology is a proven, powerful tool for patients but getting set-up without additional support can be challenging. Nurse services offer far greater support than just in-clinic or simple telephonic check-ins. Technology is part of the future of healthcare, and additional resources are needed to get older patients to properly adopt technology and take advantage of the many benefits.

5. RPM Technology is the Future

Remote patient monitoring is a new, massive reimbursement opportunity in healthcare. By including remote patient monitoring technology in your healthcare offering, you will need additional support to roll it out. Working with surgery nurses who can get patients set-up on technology, review patient data in the dashboard, monitor risk, prevent complications, etc. will help you take full advantage of these new billable codes.

Although remote patient monitoring billable codes mostly affect physicians, the future of healthcare is shaping up to include technology that extends care provider and payer reach beyond the clinic, office or telephone. Investing in purposeful technology that not only support a nurse services program, but assists with clinical and client goals, is a win-win-win!


Are you a case manager, nurse navigator, administrator or clinician looking to attract more patients or clients? Find out how PeerWell helps people like you do exactly this.