Value-based care remains a loaded term in the home health care industry. But nonetheless, its prevalence is growing by the day.
Industry insiders have recently told Home Health Care News that likely less than 5% of industry business is conducted through value-based contracts. Contrasted with that is what 42% of providers say, which is that such contracts will account for over 50% of their business in the next three to five years.
That data is from a recently released survey report conducted by AlayaCare and HHCN.
“I still think we’re very much in the early days and very much in the infancy of it,” Allan Levine, the SVP of growth and revenue at Nevvon, said during a webinar Wednesday discussing the survey’s results. “What I got out of the survey was that right now, a lot of organizations are in the process of figuring out the how and what it means to them. There’s a few organizations that are leading the charge and further along. But the bulk of the industry is in listening mode, in Step 1 or 2 of the process.”
The New York City-based Nevvon is a home health training and certification platform.
Despite 42% of providers believing over half of their revenue would be coming from value-based care contracts in the coming years, the vast majority reported that it currently makes up little to very little of their revenue.
Also of note in the survey was just how much respondents believed that value-based care would shake up the industry in the coming years.
Broadly, home-based care professionals are anticipating the concept will have significant financial and clinical impacts on home health in years to come. They also believe it will lead to much more M&A, which is something providers – especially the larger ones – have been speculating for quite a while.
Though providers almost all believe value-based care will have a significant effect on their organizations and in the industry in the future, 63% reported that they were either unsure or indifferent about the impact that it has made on their organizations up until this point.
“I think a lot of agencies are in that fact-finding stage to see where they stand,” Charles Breznicky, a clinical director at SimiTree, also said on the webinar. “One of the stats that I had seen that stood out was regarding the tracking of the client satisfaction – 69% of providers saw that as extremely important. … That’s always an area that agencies want to work on. But it can be hard to put plans in place to really address that.”
To some extent, all providers will have to be familiar and engage with the general concept of value-based care, as the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model rolls out nationwide in 2023.
In order to not have scores that negatively impact their bottom lines, providers will have to concentrate on what makes value-based care work – for themselves and the patient.
But there could also be good to come from that, outside of just succeeding in HHVBP. Operating under the payment system could be a dry run to prove to managed care organizations that home health care can drive good outcomes and savings in value-based models.
How providers can succeed
Providers believe that tracking client satisfaction and sharing documents between facilities will be among the most important practices under value-based care, according to the survey.
“There’s a few themes that are resonating, including the focus on interoperability and data,” Levine said.
But home health professionals overwhelmingly believe that scheduling and route optimization for clinicians will become paramount in the next three to five years.
Caregiver-centric scheduling goes hand in hand with another pressing issue in home-based care right now, which is staffing.
More than ever – especially with gas prices hiking due to inflation – workers want to have convenient, reasonable visit schedules that fit well into their days. But at the same time, providers need to use the workers they do have efficiently in order to maximize their bottom lines.
“It’s almost like the elephant in the room, that there is a massive labor shortage right now,” Naomi Goldapple, the VP of AlayCare’s AlayaLabs, said on the webinar. “It’s super important to be able to leverage technology and wearables. If we’re having trouble hiring caregivers, and attracting them and retaining them, then that’s kind of further down the food chain. But I think the schedule and route optimization will help to make scheduling and the use of these precious resources more efficient.”
Companies featured in this article:
