GiftCard Partners Blog

The care that a patient receives directly after leaving the hospital is critical to keeping hospital readmission rates low. It is estimated that nearly 20% of patients are readmitted to the hospital within 30 days of being discharged and about 75% of those readmissions are preventable. There are various factors as to why hospital readmission occur. Most often patients are not seeing their Primary Care Physician while they are in the hospital and their PCP is only receiving a summary of treatment instead of a complete diagnosis with follow-up care recommendations. Low-income readmissions can potentially lose hospitals money with the odds being higher that another hospital bill will go unpaid. In 2015, The Affordable Care Act has mandated a financial penalty of up to 3% for institutions that have not complied with standards for reducing readmission rates. Incentives can play a huge role in reducing readmission rates. They allow you to reward patients for taking small steps that make a big difference between a healthy recovery and another trip to the ER, whether it be following up with their Primary Care Physicians or adhering to their prescription medication. Download our free white paper Reducing Readmission Rates through Incentives and Education to learn more on how to use incentives to reduce that 20% readmissions rate. Learn more about:

The top three challenges Human Resources departments across America face right now are employee turnover, employee engagement, and succession planning. All three present interesting challenges, but can be overcome if HR leaders take on the challenges with creative solutions. Let’s take a look at how HR departments can change their views on these issues to ease concerns in the new year. Consider these three New Year’s resolutions from your HR department in 2016:

On October 29^th GiftCard Partners Co-CEO Deborah Merkin joined Vicki Ravenel, VP of Business Development at Ultimate Choice and Bill Bradley, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Omega Management Group to discuss the impact employee recognition has on your consumer experience. The webcast, Employee Recognition Programs that Enrich the Customer Experience, talked to the importance of consistency, reward type and management support in building successful employee recognition. In addition, it reviewed:

The holidays are rapidly approaching and we have the latest in shopping and holiday gift card trends for this season!

According to the National Retail Federation’s Holiday Consumer Spending Survey, consumers will spend an average of $805.65 on food, decorations, gifts, and more this holiday season, the highest amount in the survey’s 15-year history! Top findings of consumers surveyed showed:

It’s been a little over a year since the Speedway acquisition of Hess Retail Network, and executives are excited that the conversion to the Speedway brand is “significantly ahead of schedule”. Nearly 1,000 of the 1,245 Hess locations have been rebranded to Speedway and 240 have been remodeled or are in the process of being remodeled.