The intersection of home health and behavioral health is driving Massachusetts-based Innovive Health west. The 23-year-old data-driven home care firm that delivers complex behavioral health services to vulnerable patients is expanding to Colorado.
The company announced Tuesday it has opened an office in Colorado Springs and has already begun caring for complex patients in their homes. Innovive Health founder and CEO Joseph McDonough told McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse the move to Colorado was an obvious decision due to the company’s strong focus on helping Medicaid beneficiaries.
“Colorado has a Medicaid system that supports our services,” McDonough explained. “They also have an extremely high need for access due to some barriers to access to care and there is a huge need.”
Innovive partners with medical groups, hospitals, home health firms and other agencies to provide in-home behavioral care to complex patients. It currently makes visits to approximately 20,000 patients a week in Massachusetts. Those patients suffer from severe mental illness, such as schizophrenia, and also have a number of comorbidities. McDonough estimated those patients could end up in a hospital or emergency room up to 15 times a year without Innovive’s services.
“A year’s worth of our services cost about $25,000 a year and that is seeing a patient daily,” McDonough added. “One hospitalization on average according to the Kaiser Family Foundation is about $38,000. If we stop a hospitalization, we’re already paying for our services for the year. We believe we can save the state of Colorado up to $200,000 a year per patient.”
Behavioral health, in general, is becoming a growing part of the U.S. healthcare system. Currently valued at just under $80 billion, the sector is expected to increase to more than $105 billion by the end of the decade. Home health firm Bayada recently made a move into behavioral health with the opening of a center-based behavioral support and treatment program in New Jersey for adults and children with autism and other intellectual disabilities.
Business consulting firm Deloitte estimates 1 in 4 people will experience a behavioral illness sometime in their lives. However, access to care continues to be a challenge for many. Deloitte says barriers to behavioral healthcare include inaccessible care, siloed healthcare, gaps in clinical knowledge and continued social stigmas.
But an accompanying challenge has emerged in recent years: a shortage of behavioral health workers. A survey released Wednesday by the National Council for Mental Wellbeing uncovered serious concerns about access to behavioral health services due to a shortage of clinicians due to burnout.
Nicholas D’Addabbo, Innovive Health’s vice president of strategy, admitted to McKnight’s Home Care Daily Pulse the workforce challenge is a problem that must be addressed by state and national leaders.
“There is a shortage because they are some of the lowest paid licensed clinicians that we have in the United States, so I think from a policy perspective we need to look at that,” D’Addabbo said.
