News and Market Developments
Health Payer Intelligence: Payer Moves to Increase Member Access to Acute Home Healthcare (7/16) - Regence BlueShield (Regence) has partnered with a home healthcare provider to increase member access to acute home healthcare services. Regence members in Pierce County, Washington will have access to the new program. The payer plans to expand the acute home healthcare service to other counties in the state this year. “‘Hospitalizations in the home’ is a groundbreaking and exciting shift in care delivery,” Drew Oliveira, MD, senior executive medical director at Regence BlueShield, said in the press release. “Our partnership with DispatchHealth enables Regence members to receive clinically appropriate care safely and conveniently in the comfort of their own homes.”
Home Health Care News: Aegis, Fox Rehabilitation See Increased Demand for In-Home Therapy Services (7/13) - “A patient may have low physical therapy needs but high occupational therapy needs, for example, so it’s really important to look at a patient from a comprehensive care plan perspective,” Dawn Greaves, vice president of home services at Aegis said. Fox Rehabilitation — a therapy provider that specializes in “geriatric house calls” — has found that working in the home has achieved the best outcomes for patients. They have seen a 36% functional scale improvement in patients and a 97% patient satisfaction rating.
Home Health Care News: Changemakers: Susan Diamond, CFO, Humana (7/12) - In an interview, Susan Diamond commented on the shift towards more high-acuity services in the home and Humana's work with DispatchHealth. On the reason for the shift, she said: "Skilled nursing facilities have taken the largest hits through the pandemic...That, in my mind, accelerated the introduction of those types of models by years, compared to what we might have seen in the absence of a pandemic. That’s important for us, considering we made our investment in DispatchHealth long before the pandemic. They’ve been really successful and have been expanding their services, demonstrating the level of care that can be brought into the home. They’ve demonstrated quality outcomes, reduced readmissions and more."
Home Health Care News: Resilient Healthcare Blazing New Trails for Hospital-at-Home Model (7/11) - Currently, Resilient serves upwards of 100 patients in Texas, with a staff of over 40 full-time employees and more than 130 clinicians from a wide range of disciplines. It has received especially high interest in its hospital-at-home model as of late, though, partly thanks to the CMS “Acute Hospital Care at Home” waiver unveiled in November. CMS signing off on hospital-at-home care has pushed more insurance companies toward innovative virtual and mobile health systems. “It gives insurance companies the confidence to say, ‘Oh, well, Medicare gave them a revenue stream for this. It makes sense that we follow suit,’” Jaky Samuel said.
mHealth Intelligence: UMass Memorial Eyes Telehealth, RPM Benefits in New Hospital at Home Program (7/9) – UMass Memorial Health is partnering with Current Health and joining the Hospital at Home movement. The new program will integrate remote patient monitoring and telehealth strategies with in-person visits to provide care management at home for patients who would otherwise be taking up a hospital bed.
McKnight's Senior Living: Move toward home-based care 'now inevitable,' DispathHealth CEO says (7/7) - Roughly 100 million people in 18 states now have access to DispatchHealth’s roving teams of nurse practitioners and medical technicians. It is part of the rapidly expanding U.S. house call sector that includes VillageMD, Heal, and Doctor On Demand. Grand View Research values the sector at $460 million and projects it will expand at a compounded annual growth rate of 5% over the next six years. DispatchHealth is among the sector’s largest and has relationships with most health insurance companies, as well as numerous health systems.
Home Health Care News: Recent Deals Signal Start of a New Home Health Arms Race, Market Shift (7/8) - Reinforced by this week’s deals, it’s clear that “higher-acuity care in the home” has become a must-have capability, particularly for the larger home-based care companies. To best capitalize on post-COVID tailwinds and the changing needs of referral partners, providers want to be able to take charge on hospital-at-home, SNF-at-home and LTACH-at-home models.
OncLive: In-Home Infusions Could Continue to Bridge Disparities in Cancer Care (7/8) - In 2021, CTCA announced that they were partnering with Coram, CVS Health’s infusion care business, to deliver in-home chemotherapy infusions to eligible patients. Currently, the pilot program is enrolling Atlanta-based patients with a range of diseases, including breast, lung, prostate, colorectal, head and neck, and some genitourinary cancers, but is planned for expansion to other parts of the United States. Once patients have an inpatient infusion and they are deemed appropriate to move into the home, they can be enrolled in the program. It is often in the maintenance phase that patients are eligible.
D Magazine: In North Texas, Care is Moving From the Hospital to the Home (7/8) - This article covers the changes in health care delivery in the Dallas area as hospital-at-home programs pick up in popularity and prove their worth. It makes the point that as CMS is continuing to force providers toward value-based care over fee-for-service, the hospital-at-home model is a perfect fit as it rewards providers who can care for their patients efficiently. It highlights the successes of a Johns Hopkins pilot that has shown to reduce costs by 19 to 30 percent without losing quality.
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