Home care worker tends to patient

As much as 30% of healthcare can be delivered in the home, according to Humana President and CEO Bruce Broussard. The insurance company executive made the comment Thursday during a virtual healthcare conference sponsored by investment bank Goldman Sachs.

Humana CEO Bruce Broussard

“[In-home healthcare] includes low-acuity care that can be transferred into the home in a more convenient setting and the opportunity to really allow us to engage [with patients] much deeper,” Broussard said. “Sometimes the people we are serving don’t have transportation; sometimes they’re not fully equipped from a mobility point of view and it provides us the opportunity to serve them.”

Humana’s acquisition of home health and hospice firm Kindred at Home is partly behind Broussard’s optimism about the company’s ability to provide more holistic, value-based care to its members. The company spent $5.7 billion last year to purchase the remaining 60% stake in Kindred from private equity firm TPG Capital.

While Broussard said demand for home care remains strong, he admitted Kindred has been challenged by the severe shortage of healthcare workers, especially nurses. He said the recent surge in COVID-19 cases is making the crisis even more dire because some workers or their family members have been sidelined by the virus.

“It puts pressure on us as a company to recruit and retain nurses,” Broussard explained. “We think (of this) as sort of the long pole in the tent and it is an important part of our strategy.”

Broussard said the labor pressure was more acute than he and the company had imagined when it closed the deal on Kindred last August. However, he predicted the shortage of healthcare workers would ease once the pandemic subsides.