News and Market Developments
Fierce Healthcare: Amedisys snaps up hospital-at-home provider Contessa Health in $250M deal (7/1) – Amedisys made a major move to expand its reach in the home healthcare market by acquiring Contessa Health. Amedisys chairman and chief executive officer Paul Kusserow called the acquisition "strategic" and a "promised milestone" for Amedisys’ growth and differentiation, as it expands its capabilities to reflect growing market demands and evolving patient preference for higher-acuity in-home settings.
Healio News: ASN, NKF, CVS Kidney Care among members of campaign to improve home dialysis (6/29) – Nine leading health care organizations have launched a campaign, referred to as Innovate Kidney Care, urging CMS to update health care provider regulations to improve home dialysis. The founding members of the campaign include the American Society of Nephrology, Anthem Inc., Cricket Health, CVS Kidney Care, Home Dialyzors United, Intermountain Healthcare, the National Kidney Foundation, Outset Medical Inc. and Strive Health.
Home Health Care News: 'Choose Home' Legislation Gaining Significant Support in Congress, Nearing Formal Introduction (6/28) – “Choose Home” is gaining momentum on Capitol Hill. According to National Association for Home Care & Hospice (NAHC) President Bill Dombi there’s even a chance a Choose Home bill is introduced before Congress’s July 4 recess. If introduced and eventually enacted, Choose Home would create a new payment pathway for providers using both medical and non-medical in-home care services to keep Medicare beneficiaries out of skilled nursing facilities.
D Magazine: Signify Health Is Moving Pediatric Cancer Trials Into the Home (6/25) – Dallas-based Signify Health is partnering with the Children’s Oncology Group in a home-based clinical trial for pediatric patients fighting leukemia. Moving the trial into the home will allow for a more diverse patient base by removing travel and time barriers.
Home Health Care News: Health Care Operators Confident CMS Hospital-at-Home Waiver Will Become Permanent (6/23) – As COVID-19 subsides and
the PHE wanes, hospital-at-home players continue to create and invest in their programs. “Even before COVID, we were
thinking about the concept of hospital-at-home. It has always had significant
value, but it just hadn’t caught on because there hasn’t really been much payer
alignment,” Dr. Colin Findlay, the hospitalist in charge of Sentara To Home,
told Home Health Care News. “We were thinking, ‘This is probably something we
need to develop as a long-term strategy, [regardless of reimbursement].’”
American Medical Association: Tech that provides high-acuity home care gets high-profile boost (6/23) – The Permanente Medical Group and Northwest Permanente are deploying the technology developed by Medically Home Group to launch its KP Advanced Care at Home virtual hospital program in its Northern California and Oregon regions. "Medically Home showed that they had developed an IT platform to manage the logistics, and they had a computer program that could translate physician orders into a supplier-vendor fulfillment request that would then direct the right services and materials into a patient's home in a timely fashion," said Stephen Parodi, MD, associate executive director of The Permanente Medical Group.
UnitedHealth Group: New Optum Mobile Clinic Brings Health Care to Utahns Where They Live and Work (6/23) –Optum Care Network Utah, a part of information and technology-enabled health services business Optum, is launching the Optum Mobile Clinic. The mobile clinic helps reduce common barriers to health care, such as scheduling challenges, lack of transportation and work obligations, which often put preventive and wellness checkups out of reach.
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