News and Market Developments
NPR: A shortage of health aides is forcing out those who wish to get care at home (5/5) - More seniors and people with disabilities are choosing to stay in their homes — and with the number of adults aged 60 and older in the U.S. expected to increase 30 percent by 2050, home health aides are predicted to be one of the fastest growing professions nationwide in the next decade. In the U.S., long-term care is shifting from institutional care to more home-based services. If home health aides remain in short supply, this transition could slow and favor care for those who have private insurance plans that pay higher reimbursement rates or can afford to pay higher wages out of pocket.
Home Health Care News: How Signify Health’s Home Evaluations Are Helping Drive Value-Based Care (5/5) - No longer satisfied with just being a player in the value-based care space, Signify Health Inc. (NYSE: SGFY) ultimately is seeking to be a transformative force in health care. Its strategic plan reflects the general moment of home-based care and innovative payment arrangements as well. “As we think about our product roadmap, the core of our strategy is to build out capabilities to connect health plans and other risk-bearing entities with provider groups, in an effort to accelerate the transformation of the U.S. health care system from fee-for-service to value-based care,” CEO Kyle Armbrester said on a Q1 earnings call Thursday. “We plan to contribute to genuine care redesign.”
MedCity: Evolving hospital-at-home models benefit patients and providers (5/4) - Despite measurable benefits, adoption of hospital-at-home models has previously been limited. However, several factors have recently converged to hospital at home implementation. The most powerful drivers for digital home hospital adoption are advances in telehealth, remote monitoring and emerging digital technologies that facilitate high quality, cost-effective care beyond hospital walls. With the right technology, clinicians can deliver hospital-level care to more patients in the right place—which for many, is in the comfort and familiarity of their own home.
Home Health Care News: Home-Based Care Acquisitions, Partnerships Both on Table for CVS Health (5/4) - CVS is planning to expand its capabilities in home health as the organization prepares for the 2023 launch of a post-acute transitions pilot for Aetna membership in select geographies, according to CVS Health President and CEO Karen Lynch. Lynch specifically said that partnering with technology and home-based care players will allow the company to reduce readmissions and better care for customers. The company also continues to evaluate its portfolio for “non-strategic assets,” she said. In regards to M&A, the company is not looking for “jumbo-sized” assets, but is looking at adding capabilities.
AARP: Caregiving Made Easier: How Technology Can Reduce the Need for Doctor Visits (5/4) - There has been a huge acceleration in both innovation and receptiveness to in-home medical care as a result of the pandemic. Remote patient monitoring, increased capability of medical procedures to be performed at home (e.g. home dialysis), and house calls from medical teams are all contributing to the rise of at-home care as a viable alternative to inpatient care. Due to the CMS Acute Hospital Care at Home Waiver, more than 200 hospitals in 34 states programs that allow patients to go from the ER to home for recovery, although funding would need to be extended beyond the current COVID-19 emergency.
University of Michigan: Home is where the hospital is (5/4) - A rapid rise in home-based post-acute care options during the pandemic means patients recuperate in familiar surroundings. The article showcases the success of the University of Michigan's at-home programs, specifically the Patient Monitoring at Home program, as an example of success in these home-based options. However, continuation depends on both policymakers and physician buy-in.
Home Health Care News: Why Home-Based Care Dealmaking Was Historically Down in Q1 (5/3) - Following a record-breaking year for home care, home health and hospice M&A, deal volume took a dive in the first quarter of 2022. Despite the low figures, M&A experts are still optimistic that the number of deals will rebound.
Modern Healthcare: Gas prices, inflation stalling home health industry (5/2) - Home health historically has battled to hire and retain employees because of low wages and demanding work, problems worsened by rising costs for consumer goods and widespread burnout in the healthcare workforce. As a consequence, home health agencies are being forced to curtail the services they provide by limiting visits and turning away new patients, said David Totaro, chief government affairs officer for Bayada Home Health Care. "Where we've actually seen a significant burden is those who care for those in the rural areas," Totaro said. "Some people aren't getting the care they need because we cannot get anyone to travel those additional miles to service them."
Home Health Care News: Home Health Providers Should Prepare for Increased Scrutiny Due to Nursing Home Sector Reforms (5/2) - With the unveiling of the Biden administration’s nursing home reforms, which include increased health and safety inspections by the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), home health providers will need to be prepared to navigate through additional oversight. While the new requirements are focused on SNFs, it’s likely that the increased scrutiny will impact home health agencies and other long-term care providers. Possible increased scrutiny around infection control and prevention, care quality issues and staffing should be top of mind for providers.
MedCity: It’s time to rethink chronic care management (5/1) - With an aging population and a shortage of healthcare workers, our healthcare system cannot afford to properly care for people with chronic conditions in the ways it always has—that is, by relying on occasional check-ins at the provider site and DIY management. These methods fail to deliver the consistent care people need to effectively manage their conditions in between appointments and prevent acute symptoms that result in costly emergency visits and hospital stays. For patients more advanced disease, digitally enabled at-home care can drastically reduce the frequency and overall number of hospital visits. By creating new models that enable more continuous patient tracking and engagement, we can slow disease progression, improve patient outcomes and unlock more efficient operating models for health systems of all shapes and sizes. This model has become more familiar in the pandemic as hospitals looked for ways to keep in touch with patients more regularly from home.
Home Health Care News: Rural Home-Based Care Remains Both Necessary and Extraordinarily Challenging (4/29) - To ensure access to home health services, the Medicare program has historically provided a rural add-on payment to agencies, giving them slightly more resources to deliver care and compensate staff. But that add-on payment is being phased out, jeopardizing patient access and exacerbating operational difficulty for providers. Unless Congress decides to bring these payments back, home health providers will have to find an alternative solution.
Home Health Care News: Questions Linger as Home-Based Care Shifts Toward Value-Based Care (4/28) - HHCN explores how the home-based care space is grappling with the term "value-based care", and whether or not the home health care industry is ready for a value-based care overhaul as some seem to think it is. Thompson Aderinkomi, the co-founder and CEO of the at-home primary care company Nice Healthcare, sees value-based care, putting the patient first and doing good business as three separate ideologies; however, others see those three as synonymous. Though home-based care providers undoubtedly want to move further toward value, many of them haven’t had a real incentive to yet. Additionally, data collection on readmission rates for home care providers is still woefully behind, and home health care providers still experience far better profit from fee-for-service than most other models.
Home Health Care News: Encompass Health Focused on Home Health Hiring, Medicare Advantage Relationships (4/28) - On Wednesday, Encompass Health reported total revenue of $1.33 billion for Q1 2022, up 8.4% compared to $1.23 billion in Q1 2021. Its home health revenue checked in at $224 million, up 2.3% from $220 million a year ago. There was a 4.9% growth in home health admissions year over year, though the average cost per visit increased from $77 to $83. Even though the home health slice of Encompass Health’s bottom line was positive, the company announced it lost an estimated 2,150 home health admissions in the first quarter of 2022 due to staffing constraints. In order for Encompass Health’s home health and hospice segment to reach its goal of 500 new hires in 2022, it needs to make up for those losses and pick up the pace.
Home Health Care News: Despite Focus on Home Health, Humana Remains Flexible in Personal Care, Hospice (4/27) - This article provides a recent history and overview of Humana's stake in the home health industry, starting with their involvement with Kindred at Home in 2018, their full takeover of the organization in 2021, and then Humana's disinvestment of 60% of Kindred at Home's hospice and personal care assets to private equity firm Clayton Dubilier & Rice (CDR). Humana expects 15% of its Medicare Advantage (MA) members to be supported by the company’s value-based home health model by the end of the year; within five years, the company expects this to jump up to 50% of its MA members.
HomeCare Magazine: Patients can receive care where they are most comfortable (4/27) - Individuals enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan should know they have access to a range of options to receive in-home care, which may include primary care, urgent care and even mail-order pharmacy delivery. This approach provides the flexibility to receive medical attention in a way that works best for them and reduces the potential for a hospital stay.
Home Health Care News: Care-At-Home Startup Biofourmis Raises $300 Million in Funding, Surpasses Unicorn Status (4/26) - The investment round was led by growth equity firm General Atlantic. CVS Health (NYSE: CVS) and existing investors also participated in the round. CVS Health’s participation was particularly significant because of the experience the company brings to the table, Kuldeep Singh Rajput, CEO of Biofourmis, told Home Health Care News. Biofourmis plans to use the new funds to propel its next growth phase. The company plans to spread the funding towards a number of key areas. A portion of the funds will be earmarked for scaling Biofourmis’ virtual care offerings. “If you look at the entire continuum, from acute to post-acute to long-term chronic care — the long-term chronic care, or managing complex chronically ill patients virtually, is going to be the next scale and growth for us,” Kuldeep Singh Rajput, CEO of Biofourmis, told Home Health Care News. “Our strategy is going to be focusing on becoming a provider. This means moving away from being a turnkey solution provider, or just a technology platform, to being a true provider.”
|