Two major health plans this week disclosed partnerships to provide more services to patients at home. Ready, an on-demand healthcare service, said Wednesday that it now offers at-home healthcare services to Empire BlueCross BlueShield members located in New York City. And the Geisinger Health Plan in Pennsylvania disclosed a partnership with Tomorrow Health, a home medical equipment provider.
Using responders who have served as EMTs and paramedics, Ready provides in-person care and COVID-19 testing and a full range of non-emergency clinical services and treatment plans via a telehealth connection to doctors and nurse practitioners.
“This strategic partnership aligns with our mission of revolutionizing the way people receive care and making it more accessible to all,” said Jeremy Corbett, executive vice president of business development strategy and partnerships at Ready.
Sherrill Mason, analyst and principal of Mason Advisors LLC, told McKnight’s Home Care Daily that the Ready arrangement may represent a trend. “One of the more unique aspects of this model is the use of paramedics and EMTs as the first line of response to a call, and then using telehealth to connect the patient to a physician or nurse practitioner for further care,” she said. “This would have been impossible a dozen or so years ago. I believe it is a sign of things to come. Anytime a provider enters a patient’s home, the provider has the opportunity to view the patient’s situation in its entirety. Seeing a patient in an urgent care center or physician office does not provide that opportunity.”
Home medical equipment partnership
Also this week, Geisinger Health Plan (GHP), an insurance plan in Pennsylvania that serves more than 540,000 members and has a provider network of more than 29,000 doctors and 100 hospitals, said it joined forces with Tomorrow Health, a comprehensive platform for medical equipment and supplies. Tomorrow Health, which has partnered with more than 125 leading health plans and hospital systems across 29 states, will facilitate home medical equipment to Geisinger patients at home.
“As a single point of contact for our patients’ home medical equipment needs, Tomorrow Health will improve the support and quality of care that GHP members receive, during what is typically a very challenging time for members and their caregivers,” said Kurt J. Wrobel, president of Geisinger Health Plan and executive vice president of Geisinger Insurance Operations.
Tomorrow Health is helping fill a void for Geisinger, which has “been a pioneer around home-based healthcare,” Vijay Kedar, CEO of Tomorrow Health, told McKnight’s Home Care Daily. “They had been making a range of meaningful investments to support home-based care. But they found there was a missing link in home-based medical equipment their patients needed. They wanted to partner with an organization to bring the missing piece to home-based care.”
The partnership, which began in January, came at the right time, as a COVID-19 spike led to increased need for respirators, mobility equipment, hospital beds at home and other equipment, Kedar said.
“With Geisinger, our focus has been on supporting those needs,” Kedar said. “We have been able to support thousands and thousands of patients.”
