Hospital-at-home firm Inbound Health disclosed this week that it has expanded its skilled nursing-at-home program to include post-surgical care for general surgery, encompassing orthopedics, bariatrics and hernia.
Offering more SNF-at-home services generates profits and savings throughout the healthcare system, CEO Dave Kerwar told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse.
Using the Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver is one way to help to “drive economics from this care model,” he said. “Another way is by strategically using both hospital- and SNF-at-home to do things like increase elective surgeries and decant excess capacity in the hospital, therefore, improving patient throughput. So both are kind of a dual-pronged strategy. We always chase reimbursement for the payer, but we also [aim to improve] the operational efficiencies of the health system.”
Inbound Health patients will have access to facility-level, post-surgical care for a wider range of surgical specialties in the comfort of their homes, while healthcare providers can streamline their processes and improve quality and efficiency, the company said in a press release.
Kerwar said the new offerings are not necessarily unique in the SNF-at-home space, but the company’s results and execution involving the offerings are.
“What we’ve been able to prove is actual results, by lowering length of stay, by increasing elective surgery counts,” he said.
In a press release, Inbound Health said it first launched its orthopedic surgery and spinal surgery platforms in 2020. Since then, its patient population in orthopedics has grown by 31% from 2021-2022. Its general surgery patient population has increased by 67% from 2021-2022. The company was a part of Allina Health in Minnesota starting in May 2020. Last fall, it received a $20 million initial investment from Flare Capital Partners to develop nationally.
The company helps create savings through the expanded SNF-at-home services in two ways, he said. Kerwar offered the example of a patient who can have a procedure, such as a hip replacement, in an ambulatory surgery center, versus a hospital, and then go home to recover. The other use case is a patient who has a procedure in the hospital with a much shorter length of stay.
“We’re enabling the surgeon to do the surgery in an ambulatory surgery center and they’re recovering at home, or they’re getting their surgery done in hospital but the length of stay in the hospital is much shorter,” Kerwar said.
Julia Crist, Inbound Health COO, commented on the benefits of the company’s platforms.
“Hospital capacity is a challenge for most health systems,” she said in a statement. “Hospital-at-home and skilled nursing-at-home offer creative solutions to increase available hospital beds, improve clinical outcomes and delight patients all at the same time. The home is also the safest place to receive care as older adults benefit from lower rates of infection, falls and delirium.”
