A diverse group of healthcare companies is teaming up to change the way healthcare is delivered. Moving Health Home (MHH) launched this week with a list of policy initiatives aimed at expanding access to care at home.
Founding members of the coalition include Amazon Care, Landmark Health, Signify Health, Dispatch Health, Elara Caring, Intermountain Healthcare, Home Instead and Ascension.
“We see the home as a part of the spectrum of care, so it’s not like we’re trying to displace primary care offices or hospitals. We want people to be able to choose what’s best for them,” MHH Executive Director Krista Drobac told McKnight’s Home Care Daily.
‘Untapped potential’
The coalition says COVID-19 exposed “the untapped potential of home-based clinical care.” It thinks the expansion of telehealth during the pandemic and technologies, including digital record sharing have proven that in-home health care can be more accessible for everyone.
The policy initiatives MHH is advocating include expanding services covered in home-based settings, ensuring equal access for seniors through fair reimbursement for home-based evaluation, encouraging greater flexibility for home-based services to meet commercial and Medicare Advantage requirements, and retaining the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Hospital Without Walls program.
A vital public policy initiative
Huntington Beach, CA-based Landmark Health dispatches physicians to homes and through telehealth to 46 communities across the U.S. Chief Executive Officer Nick Loporcaro said having public policy that ensures access to home care is vital, especially to seniors.
“Over 17% of Medicare beneficiaries are living with six or more chronic conditions. In-home, patient-centered care is critical to managing the complex needs of our nation’s older adults,” Loporcaro said.
Drobac says the coalition’s first order of business will likely be pushing CMS to retain Hospital Without Walls, which allows qualifying hospitals to provide care to patients at home. CMS launched the program last March at the beginning of the pandemic and expanded it in November. To date, more than 100 hospital systems are taking part in the program.
Droback says moving the U.S. healthcare system from a fee-for-service model to a value-based care model will be more challenging, but is imperative in expanding at-home care.
“Healthcare sits on a fee-for-service chassis that rewards time-based care, so you get paid every 15 minutes,” explains Drobac. “It doesn’t make sense for a provider to spend 15 minutes in the car driving to someone’s house if you could see them in your office.”
