Health insurer Humana Inc. and DispatchHealth, a provider of in-home medical care, disclosed on Monday an agreement to provide Humana members access to advanced home care in Denver and Tacoma, WA. The agreement to provide hospital-level care at home is believed to be the country’s first involving a national payer.
It follows the November introduction of a U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ waiver program to allow qualified healthcare providers to offer acute, hospital-level care in the home. The agreement will provide members living with multiple chronic conditions, such as cellulitis, kidney and urinary tract infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and heart failure, an opportunity to be treated safely at home and thereby avoid hospital visits. Plans are in the works for expansion in Texas, Arizona and Nevada later this year.
The partnership should have a favorable effect on home care and home health agencies, Sherill Mason, analyst and principal of Mason Advisors LLC, told McKnight’s Home Care Daily. “It will likely have a positive impact on volumes for providers of home-based personal care services as well as traditional Medicare-certified home health agencies,” she explained.
The move could adversely affect other long-term care sectors, she noted. “In affected markets, the program is likely to cause a further decline in profitable Medicare-reimbursed admissions to skilled nursing facilities (SNFs),” she said. “The SNF sector has suffered a dramatic decline in occupancy because of the pandemic. Increasing use of hospital-at-home waivers and programs such as the collaboration between Humana and DispatchHealth are likely to compound the sector’s woes.”
Mason continued, “It does not appear that the collaboration will have a similar negative impact on inpatient rehabilitation facility or long-term acute care hospital volumes. The level of care in those settings is more complex and difficult to achieve in a home setting.”
This article originally appeared on McKnight's Senior Living
