Category Archives: Home Health

Back Into the Lion’s Den: COVID-19 and Post-Acute Care

Posted on by • Posted in Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Clinical Testing, Contact Tracing, Coronavirus, Coronavirus Long-Term Complications, Coronavirus Treatment, Home Care, Home Health, Infection Control, Infection Control Plan, Infectious Virus, Mortality, Nursing Home, Pandemic, Post-Covid Care, Public Health, Public Safety, Quarantine, Rehabilitation Care, Social Distancing, Telemedicine • Leave a comment

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Back Into the Lion's Den: COVID-19 and Post-Acute Care | MedPage Today

Returning COVID patients to unprepared facilities a “recipe for disaster”

As Florida becomes the new epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S., the state is trying to ensure that nursing homes and rehabilitation facilities aren’t quickly overwhelmed by patients still suffering from the disease.

So far, it has dedicated 11 facilities solely to COVID patients who need post-acute or long-term care: those who can’t be isolated at their current facilities, as well as those who’ve gotten over the worst of their illness and who can be moved to free up hospital beds for the flow of new patients.

One of those facilities is Miami Medical Center, which was shuttered in October 2017 but now transformed to care for 150 such patients. In total, the network of centers will handle some 750 patients.

“We recognize that that would be something that would be very problematic, to have COVID-positive nursing home residents be put back into a facility where you couldn’t have proper isolation,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said during a press briefing last week. “[That] would be a recipe for more spread, obviously more hospitalizations and more fatalities, and so we prohibited discharging COVID-positive patients back into nursing facilities.”

Whether 750 beds will be enough to accommodate the state’s needs remains a question, but it’s a necessary first step, given testing delays that in some cases stretch more than a week. Experts have warned that patients recovering from COVID shouldn’t be transferred to a facility without being tested first.

Without dedicated facilities, hospitals in Florida in dire need of beds for new patients might have had no other choice.

Key Role for Testing

There are no national data on the percentage of hospitalized COVID-19 patients who need rehabilitation or skilled nursing care after their hospital stay.

In general, about 44% of hospitalized patients need post-acute care, according to the American Health Care Association and its affiliate, the National Center for Assisted Living, which represent the post-acute and long-term care industries.

But COVID has “drastically changed hospital discharge patterns depending on local prevalence of COVID-19 and variations in federal and state guidance,” the groups said in an email to MedPage Today. “From a clinical standpoint, patients with COVID-19 symptoms serious enough to require hospitalization may be more likely to require facility or home-based post-acute medical treatment to manage symptoms. They also may need rehabilitation services to restore lost function as they recover post-discharge from the acute-care hospital.”

The level of post-acute care these patients need runs the spectrum from long-term acute care hospitals and inpatient rehabilitation facilities to skilled nursing facilities and home health agencies.

The variation is partly due to the heterogeneity of the disease itself. While some patients recover quickly, others suffer serious consequences such as strokes, cardiac issues, and other neurological sequelae that require extensive rehabilitation. Others simply continue to have respiratory problems long after the virus has cleared. Even those who are eventually discharged home sometimes require home oxygen therapy or breathing treatments that can require the assistance of home health aides.

Yet post-acute care systems say they haven’t been overwhelmed by a flood of COVID patients. Several groups, including AHCA, NCAL, and the American Medical Rehabilitation Providers Association (AMRPA) confirmed to MedPage Today that there’s actually been a downturn in post-acute care services during the pandemic.

That’s due to a decline in elective procedures, the societies said, adding that demand is starting to pick back up and that systems will need to be in place for preventing COVID spread in these facilities.

Testing will play a key role in being able to move patients as the need for post-acute care rises, specialists told MedPage Today.

“You shouldn’t move anyone until you know a status so that the nursing facility can appropriately receive them and care for them,” said Kathleen Unroe, MD, who studies long-term care issues at the Regenstrief Institute and Indiana University in Indianapolis.

AHCA and NCAL said they “do not support state mandates that require nursing homes to admit hospital patients who have not been tested for COVID-19 and to admit patients who have tested positive. This approach will introduce the highly contagious virus into more nursing homes. There will be more hospitalizations for nursing home residents who need ventilator care and ultimately, a higher number of deaths.”

Earlier this week, the groups sent a letter to the National Governors Association about preventing COVID outbreaks in long-term care facilities. They pointed to a survey of their membership showing that, for the majority, it was taking 2 days or longer to get test results back; one-quarter said it took at least 5 days.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently announced that it would send point-of-care COVID tests to “every single” nursing home in the U.S. starting next week. Initially, the tests will be given to 2,000 nursing homes, with tests eventually being shipped to all 15,400 facilities in the country.

Hospitals can conduct their own testing before releasing patients, and this has historically provided results faster than testing sites or clinical offices, especially if they have in-house services. However, demand can create delays, experts said.

Preparing for the Future

Jerry Gurwitz, MD, a geriatrician at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester, says now is the time to develop post-acute care strategies for any future surges.

Gurwitz authored a commentary in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society on an incident in Massachusetts early in the pandemic where a nursing home was emptied to create a COVID-only facility, only to have residents test positive after the majority had already been moved.

“We should be thinking, okay, what are the steps, what’s the alternative to emptying out nursing homes? Can we make a convention center, or part of it, amenable to post-acute care patients?” Gurwitz said. “Not just a bed to lie in, but possibly providing rehabilitation and additional services? That could all be thought through right now in a way that would be logical and lead to the best possible outcomes.”

Organizations can take the lead from centers that have lived through a surge, like those in New York City. Rusk Rehabilitation at NYU Langone Health created a dedicated rehabilitation unit for COVID-positive patients.

“We were able to bring patients out from the acute care hospital to our rehabilitation unit and continue their COVID treatment but also give them the rehabilitation they needed” — physical and occupational therapy (PT/OT) — “and the medical oversight that enhanced their recovery and got them out of the hospital quicker and in better shape,” Steven Flanagan, MD, chair of rehabilitation medicine at NYU Langone, said during an AMRPA teleconference.

Flanagan noted that even COVID patients who can be discharged home will have long-term issues, so preparing a home-based or outpatient rehabilitation program will be essential.

Jasen Gundersen, MD, chief medical officer of CareCentrix, which specializes in post-acute home care, said there’s been more concern from families and patients about going into a facility, leading to increased interest in home-based services.

“We should be doing everything we can to support patients in the home,” Gundersen said. “Many of these patients are elderly and were on a lot of medications before COVID, so we’re trying to manage those along with additive medications like breathing treatments and inhalers.”

Telemedicine has played an increasing role in home care, to protect both patients and home health aides, he added.

Long-term care societies have said that emergency waivers implemented by CMS have been critical for getting COVID patients appropriate levels of post-acute care, and they hope these remain in place as the pandemic continues.

For instance, CMS relaxed the 3-hour therapy rule and the 60% diagnostic rule, Flanagan said. Under those policies, in order to admit a patient to an acute rehabilitation unit, facilities must provide 3 hours of PT/OT every day, 5 days per week.

“Not every COVID patient could tolerate that level of care, but they still needed the benefit of rehabilitation that allowed them to get better quicker and go home faster,” he said.

Additionally, not every COVID patient fits into one of the 13 diagnostic categories that dictate who can be admitted to a rehab facility under the 60% rule, he said, so centers “could take COVID patients who didn’t fit into one of those diagnoses and treat them and get them better.”

AHCA and NCAL said further waivers or policy changes would be helpful, particularly regarding basic medical necessity requirements for coverage within each type of post-acute setting.

But chief among priorities for COVID discharges to post-acute care remains safety, the groups said.

“The solution is for hospital patients to be discharged to nursing homes that can create segregated COVID-19 units and have the vital personal protective equipment needed to keep the staff safe,” they said. “Sending hospitalized patients who are likely harboring the virus to nursing homes that do not have the appropriate units, equipment and staff to accept COVID-19 patients is a recipe for disaster.”

 

 

 

 

Predicting COVID-19’s Long-Term Impact on the Home Health Care Market

Posted on by • Posted in American Hospital Association (AHA), Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Coronavirus, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Employee Benefits, Employee Furlough, Employee Hiring Freeze, Employee Layoffs, Employee Pay Cuts, Employer-Based Health Insurance, Financially Distressed, Health Insurance Coverage Adequacy, Home Care, Home Health, Job, Job Market, Job Search, Job Security, Market Consolidation, Medicare, Mergers & Acquisitions, Nursing Home, Out of Pocket Expenses, Palliative Care, Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM), Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance • Leave a comment

Predicting COVID-19’s Long-Term Impact on the Home Health Care Market

Predicting COVID-19's Long-Term Impact on the Home Health Care ...

The Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM) and its unintended ripple effects were supposed to be the dominant story this year for the nation’s 12,000 or so Medicare-certified home health care providers. But the coronavirus has rewritten the script for 2020, throwing most of the industry’s previous projections out the window.

While PDGM — implemented on Jan. 1 — will still shape home health care’s immediate future, several other long-term trends have emerged as a result of the coronavirus and its impact on the U.S. health care system.

These trends include unexpected consolidation drivers and the sudden embrace of telehealth technology, the latter of which is a development that will affect home health providers in ways both profoundly positive and negative. Unforeseen, long-term trends will also likely include drastic overhauls to the Medicare Home Health Benefit, a revival of SNF-to-home diversion and more.

Now that providers have had roughly three full months to adapt to the coronavirus and transition out of crisis mode, Home Health Care News is looking ahead to what the industry can expect for the rest of 2020 and beyond.

‘Historic’ consolidation will still happen, with some unexpected drivers

Although the precise extent was often up for debate, most industry insiders predicted some level of consolidation in 2020, driven by PDGM, the phasing out of Requests for Anticipated Payment (RAPs) and other factors.

That certainly appeared to be true early on in the year, with Amedisys Inc. (Nasdaq: AMED), LHC Group Inc. (Nasdaq: LHCG) and other home health giants reporting more inbound calls related to acquisition opportunities or takeovers of financially distressed agencies.

In fact, during a fourth-quarter earnings call, LHC Group CEO and Chairman Keith Myers suggested that 2020 would kick off a “historic” consolidation wave that would last several years.

“As a result of this transition in Q4 and the first few months of 2020, we have seen an increase in the number of inbound calls from smaller agencies looking to exit the business,” Myers said on the call. “Some of these opportunities could be good acquisition candidates, and others we can naturally roll into our organic growth through market-share gains.”

Most of those calls stopped with the coronavirus, however.

Although the vast majority of home health agencies have experienced a decline in overall revenues during the current public health emergency, many have been able to compensate for losses thanks to the federal government’s multi-faceted response.

For some, that has meant taking advantage of the approximately $1.7 billion the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has distributed through its advanced and accelerated payment programs. For others, it has meant accepting the somewhat murky financial relief sent their way under the Provider Relief Fund.

In addition to those two possible sources of financial assistance, all Medicare-certified home health agencies have benefitted from Congress’s move to suspend the 2% Medicare sequestration until Dec. 31.

Eventually, those coronavirus lifelines and others will be pulled back, kickstarting M&A activity once again.

“We believe that a lot of the support has stopped or postponed the shakeout that’s occurring in home health — or that we anticipated would be occurring around this time,” Amedisys CEO and President Paul Kusserow said in March. “We don’t believe it’s over, though.”

Not only will consolidation happen, but some of it will be fueled by unexpected players.

With the suspension of elective surgeries and procedures, hospitals and health systems have lost billions of dollars. Rick Pollack, president and CEO of the American Hospital Association (AHA), estimated that hospitals are losing as much as $50 billion a month during the coronavirus.

“I think it’s fair to say that hospitals are facing perhaps the greatest challenge that they have ever faced in their history,” Pollack, whose organization represents the interests of nearly 5,000 hospitals, told NPR.

To cut costs, some hospitals may look to get rid of their in-house home health divisions. It’s a trend that may already be happening, too.

The Home Health Benefit will look drastically different

With a mix of temporary and permanent regulatory changes, including a redefinition of the term “homebound,” the Medicare Home Health Benefit already looks very different now than it did three months ago. But the benefit will likely go through further retooling in the not-too-distant future.

Broadly, the Medicare Part A Trust Fund finances key services for beneficiaries.

While vital to the national health care infrastructure, the fund is going broke — and fast. In the most recent CMS Office of the Actuary report released in April, the Trust Fund was projected to be entirely depleted by 2026.

The COVID-19 virus has only accelerated the drain on the fund, with some predicting it to run out of money two years earlier than anticipated. A group of health care economics experts from Harvard and MIT wrote about the very topic on a joint Health Affairs op-ed published Wednesday.

“COVID-19 is causing the Medicare Part A program and the Hospital Insurance (HI) Trust Fund to contend with large reductions in revenues due to increased unemployment, reductions in salaries, shifts to part-time employment from full time and a reduction in labor force participation,” the group wrote. “In addition to revenue declines, there was a 20% increase in payments to hospitals for COVID-related care and elimination of cost sharing associated with treatment of COVID.”

Besides those and other cost pressures, Medicare is simultaneously expanding by about 10,000 new people every day. The worst-case scenario: the Medicare Part A Trust Fund goes broke closer to 2024.

There are numerous policy actions that can be taken to reduce the financial strain on the trust fund. In their op-ed, for example, the team of Harvard and MIT researchers suggested shifting all of home health care under Part B.

In 2018, Medicare spent about $17.9 billion on home health benefits, with roughly 66% of that falling under Part B, which typically includes community-based care that isn’t linked to hospital or nursing home discharge. Consolidating all of home health care into Part B would move billions of dollars away from Part A, in turn expanding the Trust Fund’s lifecycle.

“Such a policy change would move nearly $6 billion in spending away from the Part A HI Trust Fund but would put upward pressure on the Part B premium,” the researchers noted.

Of course, all post-acute care services may still undergo a transformation into a unified payment model one day. However, the coronavirus has devastated skilled nursing facility (SNF) operators, who were already dealing with the Patient-Driven Payment Model (PDPM), a payment overhaul of their own.

Regulators may shy away from introducing further disruption until SNFs have a chance to recover, a process likely to take years — if not decades.

Previously, the Trump administration had estimated that a unified payment system based on patients’ clinical needs rather than site of care would save a projected $101.5 billion from 2021 to 2030.

Telehealth will be a double-edged sword

The move toward telehealth was a long-term trend that home health providers were cognizant of before COVID-19, even if some clinicians were personally skeptical of virtual visits. But because the virus has demanded social distancing, telehealth has forced its way into health care in a manner that would have been almost unimaginable in 2019.

In late April, during a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing, President Donald Trump indicated that the number of patients using telehealth had increased from about 11,000 per week to more than 650,000 people per week.

Meanwhile, MedStar Health went from delivering just 10 telehealth visits per week to nearly 4,000 per day.

Backed by policymakers, technology companies and consumers, telehealth is likely here to stay.

“I think the genie’s out of the bottle on this one,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said in April. “I think it’s fair to say that the advent of telehealth has been just completely accelerated, that it’s taken this crisis to push us to a new frontier, but there’s absolutely no going back.”

The telehealth boom could mean improved patient outcomes and new lines of business for home health providers. But it could also mean more competition moving forward.

For telehealth to be a true game-changer for home health providers, Congress and CMS would need to pave the way for direct reimbursement. Currently, a home health provider cannot get paid for delivering virtual visits in fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) has floated the idea of introducing legislation that would allow for direct telehealth reimbursement in the home health space, but, so far, no concrete steps have been taken — at least in public. With a hyper-polarized Congress and a long list of other national priorities taking up the spotlight, it’s impossible to guess whether home health telehealth reimbursement will actually happen.

While home health providers can’t directly bill for in-home telehealth visits, hospitals and certain health care practitioners can. That regulatory imbalance could lead to providers being used less frequently as “the eyes and ears in the home,” some believe.

A new SNF-to-home diversion wave will emerge

Over the past two decades, many home health providers have been able to expand their patient census by poaching patients from SNFs. Often referred to as SNF-to-home diversion, the approach didn’t just benefit home health providers, though. It helped cut national health care spending by shifting care into lower-cost settings.

At first, the stream of SNF residents being shifted into home health care was like water being shot from a firehose: In 2009, there were 1,808 SNF days per 1,000 FFS Medicare beneficiaries, a March 2018 analysis from consulting firm Avalere Health found. By 2016, that number plummeted to 1,539 days per 1,000 beneficiaries — a 15% drop.

In recent years, that steady stream has turned into a slow trickle, with more patients being sent to home health care right off the bat. In the first quarter of 2019, 23.3% of in-patient hospital discharges were coded for home health care, while 21.1% were coded for SNFs, according to data from analytics and metrics firm Trella Health.

Genesis HealthCare (NYSE: KEN) CEO George Hager suggested the initial SNF-to-home diversion wave was over in March 2019. Kennett Square, Pennsylvania-based Genesis is a holding company with subsidiaries that operate hundreds of skilled nursing centers across the country.

“To anyone [who] would want [to] or has toured a skilled nursing asset, I would challenge you to look at the patients in our building and find patients that could be cared for in a home-based or community-based setting,” Hager said during a presentation at the Barclays Global Healthcare Conference. “The acuity levels of an average patient in a skilled nursing center have increased dramatically.”

Yet that was all before the coronavirus.

Over the last three months, more than 40,600 long-term care residents and workers have died as a result of COVID-19, according to an analysis of state data gathered by USA Today. That’s about 40% of the U.S.’s overall death toll.

CMS statistics place that number closer to 26,000.

In light of those figures and infection-control issues in congregate settings, home health providers will see a new wave of SNF-to-home diversion as robust as the first. As the new diversion wave happens, providers will need to be prepared to care for patients with higher acuity levels and more co-morbidities.

“[That’s going to change] the psyche of the way people are going to view SNFs and long-term care facilities for the rest of our generation,” Bruce Greenstein, LHC Group’s chief strategy and innovation officer, said during a June presentation at the Jefferies Virtual Healthcare Conference. “You would never want to put your parent in a facility if you don’t have to. You want options now.”

One stat to back up this idea: Over 50% of family members are now more likely to choose in-home care for their loved ones than they were prior to the coronavirus, according to a survey from health care research and consulting firm Transcend Strategy Group.

Separate from SNF-to-home diversion, hospital-to-home models will also likely continue to gain momentum after the coronavirus.

There will be a land grab for palliative care

Over the past two years, home health providers have aggressively looked to expand into hospice care, partly due to the space’s relatively stable reimbursement landscape. Amedisys — now one of the largest hospice providers in the U.S. — is the prime example of that.

During the COVID-19 crisis, palliative care has gained greater awareness. Generally, palliative care is specialized care for people living with advanced, serious illnesses.

“Right now, we are seeing from our hospital partners and our community colleagues the importance of palliative care, including advanced care as well as appropriate pain and symptom management,” Capital Caring Chief Medical Officer Dr. Matthew Kestenbaum previously told HHCN. “The number of palliative care consults we’re being asked to perform in the hospitals and in the community has actually increased. The importance of palliative care is absolutely being shown during this pandemic.”

As community-based palliative care programs continue to prove their mettle amid the coronavirus, home health providers will increasingly consider expanding into the market to further diversify their services.

Currently, just 10% of community-based palliative care programs are operated by home health agencies.

Demand will reach an all-time high

The home health industry may ultimately shrink in terms of raw number of agencies, but the overall size of the market is very likely to expand at a faster-than-anticipated pace.

In years to come, home health providers will still ride the macro-level tailwinds of an aging U.S. population with a proven preference to age in place — that hasn’t changed. But because of SNF-to-home diversion and calls to decentralize the health care system with home- and community-based care, providers will see an increase in referrals from a variety of sources.

In turn, home health agencies will need to ramp up their recruitment and retention strategies.

There’s already early evidence of this happening.

Last week, in St. Louis, Missouri, four home-based care agencies announced that they were hiring a combined 1,000 new employees to meet the surge in demand, according to the St. Louis Dispatch.

Meanwhile, Brookdale Senior Living Inc. (NYSE: BKD) similarly announced plans to hire 4,500 health care workers, with 10% of those hires coming from the senior living operator’s health care services segment.

Bayada Home Health Care likewise announced plans to ramp up hiring.

“We are absolutely hiring more people now than ever,” Bayada CEO David Baiada previously told HHCN. “The need for services — both because of societal and demographic evolution, but also because of what we anticipate as a rebound and an increase in the demand for home- and community-based care delivery as a result of the pandemic — is requiring us to continue to accelerate our recruitment efforts.”

The bottom line: The coronavirus may have presented immediate obstacles for home health providers, but the long-term outlook is brighter than ever.

 

 

 

 

Telehealth could grow to a $250B revenue opportunity post-COVID-19: analysis

Posted on by • Posted in Access, Access & Quality of Healthcare, Chronic Care Management, Clinical Outcomes, College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), Consumer Preferences, Consumerism, Coronavirus, Emergency Care, Health System, Home Health, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Medicaid, Medicare, Necessary Care, Office Visit, Outcomes, Pandemic, Patient Satisfaction, Physician, Physician Practice Management, Primary Care, Provider Satisfaction, Telemedicine, Virtual Healthcare, Virtual Visit • Leave a comment

https://www.fiercehealthcare.com/tech/telehealth-could-grow-to-a-250b-revenue-opportunity-post-covid-mckinsey-reports

virtual visit

With the acceleration of consumer and provider adoption of telehealth, a quarter of a trillion dollars in current U.S. healthcare spend could be done virtually, according to a new report.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, consumer adoption of telehealth has skyrocketed, from 11% of U.S. consumers using telehealth in 2019 to 46% of consumers now using telehealth to replace canceled healthcare visit, according to consulting firm McKinsey & Company’s COVID-19 consumer survey conducted in April.

McKinsey’s survey also found that about 76% of consumers say they are highly or moderately likely to use telehealth in the future. Seventy-four percent of people who had used telehealth reported high satisfaction.

Health systems, independent practices, behavioral health providers, and other healthcare organizations rapidly scaled telehealth offerings to fill the gap between need and canceled in-person care. Providers are ready for the shift to virtual care: 57% view telehealth more favorably than they did before COVID-19 and 64% are more comfortable using it, according to McKinsey’s recent provider surveys.

Pre-COVID-19, the total annual revenues of U.S. telehealth players were an estimated $3 billion, with the largest vendors focused on virtual urgent care.

Telehealth is now poised to take a bigger share of the healthcare market as McKinsey estimates that up to $250 billion, or 20% of all Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial outpatient, office, and home health spend could be done virtually.

The consulting firm looked at anonymized claims data representative of commercial, Medicare, and Medicaid utilization.

The company’s claims-based analysis suggests that approximately 20% of all emergency room visits could potentially be avoided via virtual urgent care offerings, 24% of healthcare office visits and outpatient volume could be delivered virtually, and an additional 9% “near-virtually.”

Up to 35% of regular home health attendant services could be virtualized, and 2% of all outpatient volume could be shifted to the home setting, with tech-enabled medication administration.

Many of the dynamics that have helped to expand telehealth adoption are likely to be in place for at least the next 12 to 18 months, as concerns about COVID-19 remain until a vaccine is widely available.

Going forward, telehealth can increase access to necessary care in areas with shortages, such as behavioral health, improve the patient experience, and improve health outcomes, McKinsey reported.

Providers and patients are concerned that recent federal and state policies expanding access to telehealth will be rolled back once the emergency period ends.

Industry groups, including the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives (CHIME), are calling on lawmakers to ensure the changes enacted by Congress and the administration become permanent.

McKinsey’s research indicates providers’ concerns about telehealth include security, workflow integration, effectiveness compared with in-person visits, and the future for reimbursement.

“We call on Medicare and all other insurers to continue to fund telehealth programs and work collaboratively on coverage and coding to lessen provider burden. We cannot go back to pre-COVID telehealth; instead, we must go forward. Patients will demand it and providers will expect it,” CHIME CEO and President Russell Branzell said in a recent statement.

Telehealth also is drawing bipartisan support. Senator Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., urged Congress to “continue to support this expansion and codify the administration’s changes to support the health needs of the American people,” in a recent news release.

Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Illinois, is introducing a bill directing HHS Secretary Alex Azar to oversee a telehealth study looking at the technology’s impact on health and costs, Politico reported in its newsletter today.

 

Taking advantage of the telehealth opportunity

Healthcare providers and payers will need to take action to ensure the full potential of telehealth is realized after the crisis has passed, according to McKinsey.

There continue to be challenges as providers cite concerns about telehealth include security, workflow integration, effectiveness compared with in-person visits, and the future for reimbursement. There also is a gap between consumers’ interest in telehealth (76%) and actual usage (46%). Factors such as lack of awareness of telehealth offerings and understanding of insurance coverage are some of the drivers of this gap.

“The current crisis has demonstrated the relevance of telehealth and created an opening to modernize the care delivery system,” McKinsey consultants wrote. “Healthcare systems that come out ahead will be those who act decisively, invest to build capabilities at scale, work hard to rewire the care delivery model, and deliver distinctive high-quality care to consumers.”

McKinsey outlined steps industry stakeholders should take to drive the growth of telehealth.

 

Payers: Health plans should look to optimize provider networks and accelerate value-based contracting to incentivize telehealth. Align incentives for using telehealth, particularly for chronic patients, with the shift to risk-based payment models.

Payers also should build virtual health into new product designs to meet changing consumer preferences, This new design may include virtual-first networks, digital front-door features (for example, e-triage), seamless “plug-and-play” capabilities to offer innovative digital solutions, and benefit coverage for at-home diagnostic kits.

 

Health systems: Hospitals and health systems should accelerate the development of an overall consumer-integrated “front door.” Consider what the integrated product will initially cover beyond what currently exists and integrate with what may have been put in place in response to COVID-19, for example, e-triage, scheduling, clinic visits, record access.

Providers also should build the capabilities and incentives of the provider workforce to support virtual care, including, workflow design, centralized scheduling, and continuing education. And, health systems need to take steps to measure the value of virtual care by quantifying clinical outcomes, access improvement, and patient/provider satisfaction. Include the potential value from telehealth when contracting with payers for risk models to manage chronic patients, McKinsey said.

 

Investors and health technology firms: These players also can support the new reality of expanded telehealth services. Technology firms should consider developing scenarios on how virtual health will evolve and when, including how usage evolved post-COVID-19, based on expected consumer preferences, reimbursement, CMS and other regulations.

Investors also should develop potential options and define investment strategies based on the expected virtual health future. For example, combinations of existing players/platforms, linkages between in-person and virtual care offerings and create sustainable value. Investors and technology companies also can identify the assets and capabilities to implement these options, including specific assets or capabilities to best enable the play, and business models that will deliver attractive returns.

 

 

 

 

The Value of Home Health Care

Posted on by • Posted in Coronavirus, Health Policy, Home Health, Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Pandemic, Telemedicine • Leave a comment

https://morningconsult.com/opinions/the-value-of-home-health-care/?utm_source=ActiveCampaign&utm_medium=email&utm_content=Does+the+US+Spend+Too+Much+on+Police%3F&utm_campaign=TFT+Newsletter+06042020

5 Truths About Home Health Care

For the first time in our modern history, staying at home has become a “new” normal. And with more than 1.5 million Americans now infected with COVID-19, never before in our lifetime has accessing care in a person’s home been so important.

Smartly, our federal and state policymakers quickly expanded reimbursement for telehealth and removed barriers that have now allowed more providers to care for patients virtually via video and phone, eliminating the risk of COVID-19 exposure during provider visits. But not all care can be provided through telehealth – and we would be shortsighted to not also address the growing need for home-based care.

Long before the COVID-19 emergency, health care policy experts have increasingly recognized the value of home-based health care. A recent AARP survey found that three in four adults 50 years and older would prefer to age in their homes and communities. And a growing body of evidence suggests it is less expensive to deliver care in the home. Indeed, for years we’ve seen hospitalized patients more quickly returning to their homes and communities to heal and recover safely, reducing costs for themselves and the health care system.

Home-based care addresses some of the negative health effects of social isolation and loneliness, which drive poorer health outcomes that annually cost billions of excess health care dollars. According to one study, those experiencing loneliness and social isolation had a more than 60 percent higher risk of developing dementia and a fourfold increase in hospital readmission rates within a year of discharge.

Despite its demonstrated value, our country has yet to fully integrate the support needed for home-based care. Instead, we have a collage of different reimbursement frameworks across state, federal, and private payers.

Traditionally, Medicare has paid only for home caregivers in very limited circumstances. But we’re now seeing small and promising changes. The Medicare Advantage program, for example, now allows plans to offer non-medical care services in the home as supplemental benefits. These benefits can include day care services, in-home support services including meals and support for caregivers.

We have also seen a surge of technologies to enable home-based care. From those receiving home infusion therapies, to home dialysis, to remote patient monitoring, the private sector has stepped up to meet the needs of those wanting to or needing to receive care at home.

Now is the time to expand on these promising changes with a more comprehensive approach to paying for home-based care delivery. With more thoughtful integration of caregiving services and improved care coordination across care settings, including the home, such models can drive down health care costs for patients and the system overall.

Whether caring for those impacted by our current public health crisis, or those who are medically homebound, or those who simply choose to age in place, policymakers should think beyond essential medical services and consider the non-medical drivers of health that are often as essential to good health outcomes. For example, many individuals needing to stay at home are ill-equipped to carry out their own basic needs. Daily tasks — such as getting in and out of a chair or bed, moving about the house, shopping and preparing meals, taking medications properly, bathing and dressing, and cleaning and laundry — can be a struggle for the elderly and those with serious health conditions.

Fortunately, we have millions of home health nurses and caregivers working on the front lines to care for vulnerable adults who should safely remain in their homes during this pandemic and beyond.

These workers are the foot soldiers who perform tasks such as shopping, meal preparation and assisting with mobility and personal care. Well-trained caregivers and nurses, sensitive to the time and place where patients actually live, can more readily identify and address issues that can exacerbate a person’s chronic, complex illness that may not otherwise be visible in a single visit to a traditional health care setting.

As we face record unemployment, federal, state and local policymakers should consider how best to utilize this untapped resource both now and in the future. With the appropriate testing, training, and reimbursement, individuals can have a choice in where they age and receive care.

While keeping people safe and healthy in their homes has always been appealing, now it is imperative. For our most vulnerable individuals — the elderly and those with chronic health conditions – home-based care can save their lives.

 

 

 

Hospitals to face bumpy recovery with depressed margins into 2021, S&P predicts

Posted on by • Posted in Coronavirus, Credit Quality, Credit Ratings, Crisis, Crisis Management, Economic Crisis, Economic Stimulus, Elective Procedures, Elective Surgery, Financially Distressed, Health System, Home Health, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Laboratory Industry, Market Outlook, Market Uncertainty, Medicare Advance Payments, Operating Expenses, Operating Income, Operating Margin, Operating Performance, Operating Revenue, Paycheck Protection Program, The CARES Act • Leave a comment

https://www.healthcaredive.com/news/SP-ratings-hospital-margins-historic-lows-until-2021/578815/

April was the worst month ever for hospital operating margins

Dive Brief:

  • Despite rebounding patient volumes at some health systems, an overall slow and bumpy recovery period is most likely to last into next year, according to analysts with S&P Global Ratings. Operating margins will remain below historic levels for the rest of 2020 and into early 2021.
  • The ratings agency took negative action against companies in health sub-sectors facing more sudden and dramatic declines in business and now face less certain paths to recovery than others, such as dental companies, along with physical therapy and ambulatory surgery centers.
  • Medical staffing and physician groups were also downgraded or had their outlooks revised, due to major declines in emergency room and doctors office visits​ coupled with declining demand for anesthesia and radiology services related to delayed surgeries.

Dive Insight:

Federal relief grants are helping offset major financial losses for some health systems in the short-term, but factors like a second surge causing another total lockdown, rising unemployment and hesitancy from patients as they return to medical settings make long-term prospects unpredictable.

S&P Global Ratings said in a report this week that it took 36 negative actions in health services companies during the pandemic. The most affected sub-sector was dental companies. It also changed outlooks on ambulatory surgery centers given significant volume declines.

Hospitals and home healthcare were rated at moderate to high financial risk, though analysts expect those businesses to recover faster due to the more essential nature of their services, according to the report. And in the short-term, government relief funds will help bolster hospitals’ liquidity as they attempt to return to normal operations and recover from steep losses.

Delayed elective care that’s just restarting in some states led most hospitals to the financial fallout. But even hospitals treating a large number of COVID-19 patients will be hurt, as these patients are expensive to treat due to higher supply and labor costs, the report said.

It also found that nonprofit and for-profit operators could fare differently in their financial recoveries. Non-profit hospitals generally have larger cash reserves than for profit systems, which rely instead almost exclusively on cash flow and borrowings for liquidity.

Providers are relying specifically on the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act which allocated $100 billion for providers that they don’t have to pay back, though there has been some criticism about how the money was distributed and whether it advantages some providers over others.

A Kaiser Family Foundation report found that CARES funding tends to favor for profit, higher margin hospitals with a higher mix of private payer revenue compared to those that rely on government payers such as Medicare and Medicaid.

Other legislation to help financially struggling health systems include advanced Medicare payments in the form of loans that must be paid back roughly four months after they are received.

The Paycheck Protection and Healthcare Enhancement Act passed in late April gave providers an additional $75 billion, though calculation and distribution methods have yet to be determined.

The U.S. House of Representatives also passed a $3 trillion bill dubbed the Health and Economic Recovery Omnibus Emergency Solutions (HEROES) Act that allocates $100 billion for provider reimbursement and creates special enrollment periods for Medicare and Affordable Care Act plans, though the Trump administration said it’s too soon for additional relief funding.

Lab companies were put in the moderate risk category, and seeing a “40% decline in lab tests net of COVID testing,” S&P said.

Still, it said despite the drop in overall testing for LabCorp and Quest Diagnostics, S&P predicted “their services to become even more important, and for their services to recover reasonably well as testing related to the pandemic continues to grow and as medical procedures and physician visits ramp-up through the rest of the year and into 2021.”

 

 

 

“We’re looking at a tsunami”

Posted on by • Posted in Childcare, Coronavirus, Crisis, Crisis Management, Cybersecurity, Health System, Healthcare Providers, Home Care, Home Health, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Infection Control, Infectious Virus, Intensive Care (ICU), Leadership, Nurses, Paid Time Off (PTO), Pandemic, Talent Management • Leave a comment

https://mailchi.mp/a3d9db7a57c3/the-weekly-gist-march-20-2020?e=d1e747d2d8

Yesterday we spoke with a senior healthcare executive leading the COVID-19 response for a regional health system on the West Coast. Their area is now experiencing exponential growth of new cases, with the number of local diagnoses doubling every couple of days. In all likelihood, they’re less than two weeks from having the number of cases seen in harder-hit areas like San Francisco, Seattle and New York City. She said the “anticipation of what is about to happen” is the scariest part of the around-the-clock work they are doing to prepare.

But that two-week lead time has given them precious time to organize, and she generously shared key elements of their action plan. Their preparation work—surely similar to what hundreds of health systems around the country are doing—impressed us not only with its breadth, depth and comprehensiveness, but also the level of energy and confidence conveyed by the hundreds of actions and decisions, large and small, the system is making every day. Here are some of their important learnings so far:

  1. Even though the surge of patients has yet to begin, staff are “worried and scared”. They are concerned about PPE shortages and personal safety and stressed at home with schools and daycare closed. Detailed and regular communication is more critical than ever—and they’re trying to answer every inbound concern or question from associates directly. They are funding and expanding childcare options for staff, through partnerships with community organizations and daily stipends for home-based care.
  2. As the system works through worst-case scenario planning, they anticipate the need for critical care nurses, respiratory therapists, and emergency physicians will be the worst bottlenecks, and they are working to cross-train adjacent clinicians and build new staffing models to increase capacity. While most providers are deeply dedicated to providing care for COVID-19 patients, a small number have already “called off” and refused to report—creating unanticipated questions around how to manage these difficult situations.
  1. As they prepare to implement new surge staffing models, the system is now navigating through a period of downtime. With elective procedures cancelled and some ambulatory sites closed, they currently need fewer nurses and clinical staff than a month ago, and are creating policies, like allowing staff to go negative into PTO, to maintain income while they wait for the surge. Staff who must work in-person are working variable shifts to reduce crowding. They are also working to credential nurses and staff furloughed from local ambulatory surgery centers, so they have them ready to deploy when needed.
  1. IT staff are working nonstop to quickly make it possible for all eligible employees to work remotely, and to enable staff to safely gain access to the system’s intranet while guarding against new cybersecurity threats. The system is training and enabling hundreds of doctors to deliver care virtually, including affiliated independents.
  1. Guidelines for coronavirus patient management and recommended PPE practices change daily; it’s a full-time job for clinical leaders to keep up. Doctors are eager to try novel and creative treatments for very sick patients. (For instance, one doctor is developing a 3-D printed device that will allow one ventilator to be used for four patients simultaneously.) This eagerness to “do something” is understandable but creates a bit of chaos as leaders work to create policies around how to best manage patients.
  1. While leaders communicate with other health systems and local and state authorities daily, the vast majority of decisions are made internally, on the fly. For instance, the system is connecting with now-empty local hotels and universities to provide options for low-acuity patient capacity, but leaders hope that parallel efforts at other organizations can be brought together into a more unified regional response. For now, however, coordination would likely create unacceptable delays.
  1. Long-term health and stamina of staff is top among the system’s concerns. “If I borrow worry from the future”, this leader said, “I am worried that we are facing years-long trauma, both emotional and financial, and I’m not sure how we will sort it out”. For now, efforts to support staff and provide moments of relief and joy, are critical, and very appreciated by front-line team members.

We left this conversation emotionally overwhelmed ourselves, and with a huge sense of gratitude for clinicians and health system leaders. Americans can take comfort in the amount of work that is taking place even before critical patients begin to appear—and that doctors, nurses and hospitals are truly dedicated to providing us the best possible care under circumstances they have never faced before. If you know about creative approaches or new ideas organizations are putting in place to contend with the current situation, please let us know. We’re eager to share great ideas!

 

 

 

MedPAC’s report to Congress: 7 takeaways

Posted on by • Posted in Health Policy, Health System, Home Health, Hospice, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Inpatient Rehab Hospital, Long Term Care Hospital, Market Consolidation, Market Power, Medicare, Medicare 340B Drug Discount Program, Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC), Physician, Physician Compensation, Physician Practice Management, Skilled Nursing Facility, Surgery Center • Leave a comment

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/finance/medpac-s-report-to-congress-7-takeaways.html?utm_medium=email

Image result for MedPAC

The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission released its March 2020 report on Medicare payment policy to Congress, which includes a chapter analyzing the effects of hospital and physician consolidation in the healthcare sector.

Here are seven takeaways:

1. Medicare’s Insurance Trust Fund is likely to run out without changes. Trustees from Medicare estimate that the program’s Hospital Insurance Trust Fund, mostly funded through a payroll tax, will be depleted by 2026. To keep the fund solvent for the next 25 years, Medicare trustees advise that the payroll tax immediately be raised from 2.9 percent to 3.7 percent, or Part A spending to be reduced by 18 percent.

2. MedPAC recommends boosting payment rate for three sectors:

  • Hospitals. MedPAC recommended a 3.3 percent raise in Medicare payments for hospitals next year. The commission said it wants to give hospitals a 2 percent boost overall and tie the other 1.3 percent to quality metrics to motivate hospitals to reduce mortality and improve patient satisfaction. Currently, CMS has scheduled a 2.8 percent increase in 2021 Medicare payments.
  • Outpatient dialysis services. MedPAC recommended that the End Stage Renal Disease Prospective Payment System base payment rate is raised by the amount determined under current law. This is projected to be a boost of 2 percent
  • Long-term care hospitals. The commission recommended a 2 percent increase in the payment rates for long-term care hospitals in 2021.

3. MedPAC recommends unchanged payment rates for four sectors:

  • Physicians: Under current law, there is no update to the 2021 Medicare fee schedule base payment rate for physicians who treat Medicare patients. MedPAC is recommending that CMS keeps the physician rate the same as it is this year.
  • Surgery centers. MedPAC recommended eliminating an expected 2.8 percent payment rate bump for surgery centers next year. It said its decision was due to not having enough cost data from surgery centers.
  • Skilled nursing. MedPAC is recommending skilled nursing facilities receive no change to their base rate next year to better align payments with costs while exerting pressure on providers to keep their cost growth low.
  • Hospice. MedPAC recommends that the hospice payment rates in 2021 be held at their 2020 levels

4. MedPAC recommends payment rate reductions for two sectors: 

  • Home health. The commission recommended a 7 percent reduction in home health payment rates for 2021.
  • Inpatient rehabilitation hospitals. MedPAC is recommending that CMS reduce the payment rate to inpatient rehabilitation facilities by 5 percent for fiscal year 2021.

5. MedPAC builds on its recommendation to revamp quality programs. MedPAC is furthering its recommendation to replace Medicare’s four current hospital quality programs with a single hospital value incentive program. MedPAC said it believes that this recommendation would provide hospitals  higher aggregate payments than they would get under current law.

6. MedPAC’s findings on hospital and physician consolidation. MedPAC said that consolidation gives providers greater market power, which has a statistically significant association with higher profit margins for treating non-Medicare patients. Higher non-Medicare margins also are associated with higher standardized costs per discharge. But the direct association between market power and standardized costs per discharge is statistically insignificant, the commission found.

“The effect of consolidation on hospitals’ costs is not clear in theory or from our current analysis. From a theoretical standpoint, the merger of two hospitals could initially create some efficiencies and bargaining power with suppliers. But over time, higher prices from commercial payers could loosen hospitals’ budget constraints and lead to higher cost growth, thus offsetting any efficiency gains,” MedPAC’s report states.

7. MedPAC’s findings on the 340B Drug Discount Program. MedPAC was asked to analyze whether the availability of 340B drug discounts creates incentives for hospitals to choose more expensive products than they would without the program. MedPAC studied the effect of 340B market share on higher drug spending on cancer treatments between 2009 and 2017. The commission found that for two of the five cancer types studied, 340B participation boosted prices by about $300 per patient per month. However, the boost in spending attributed to 340B was much smaller than the general increase in oncology spending, which includes rising prices and the launch of new products with high drug prices. For example, cancer drug spending grew by more than $2,000 per patient month for patients with breast cancer, lung cancer, and leukemia/lymphoma.

“The MedPAC report released today uses rigorous analysis and finds little evidence 340B participation influences cancer drug spending. Modest differences may be attributable to the types of patients treated in 340B facilities. The safety-net hospitals that participate in the 340B drug-pricing program are essential providers of cancer care in this nation, especially to patients who are living with low incomes, those living with disabilities, and patients requiring more complex oncology care,” said Maureen Testoni, president and CEO of 340B Health, an association that represents more than 1,400 hospitals participating in the 340B program.

Access MedPAC’s full report here.