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Barb Jacobsmeyer is the new head of Encompass Health’s (NYSE: EHC) home health and hospice segment, taking over following the departure of former CEO and founder April Anthony.
Previously the head of the Birmingham, Alabama-based company’s in-patient hospitals segment, Jacobsmeyer takes the helm at a point when Encompass Health is nearing a conclusion on its exploration of “strategic alternatives” for its home health and hospice business.
On Tuesday, Encompass Health announced it is continuing to explore those strategic alternatives, but that its board of directors believes a full or partial separation, either by public or private means, “will enhance the long-term success and value of the business.”
“Many of the key preparatory actions for a separation have been completed, including but not limited to, audited carve-out financial statements for the home health and hospice business, a confidential submission of a draft registration statement on Form S-1 with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and certain required regulatory filings,” the announcement detailed. “While no assurance can be provided, the company expects to announce a transaction in the second half of 2021.”
Jacobsmeyer is a seasoned health care executive, but new to home health.
Still, it’s clear that the rest of Encompass Health’s leaders — and Jacobsmeyer herself — believe she’s ready for the role.
“I was in on board meetings, operational meetings, investor calls and conferences, so I spent a lot of time alongside home health and hospice,” Jacobsmeyer told Home Health Care News. “That let me in on some of the key challenges and how we were responding, so I come in with a basic knowledge. I’m just really spending a lot of time with the team now to understand the rules and regulations — all the facets of it that are different.”
Encompass Health is one of the largest home health providers in the nation. Its post-acute care network includes 249 home health locations and 94 hospice locations in 42 states and Puerto Rico.
During Jacobsmeyer’s transition, Bud Langham, the chief strategy and innovation officer of the home health and hospice segment, has been a helpful guide, she said. So too has Julie Jolley, the segment’s EVP of operations.
One of the starkest differences of the job, outside of the clinical details, is the workforce. Where Jacobsmeyer was used to dealing with employees who she could visit at different, set locations, home health and hospice brings the challenge of dealing with remote workers.
“That’s just really different,” Jacobsmeyer said. “And I just have a lot to learn. But [soon], I’m actually going to be starting to visit some of the branches. I think getting there and seeing what it’s really like from the time you get a referral to taking care of the patient in the field, that’s going to help me wrap my mind around it a little bit better, and I’m looking forward to that.”
Jacobsmeyer has been with Encompass Health since 2007, serving in multiple regional leadership roles before joining the company’s executive level in late 2016.
The new role will be similar to her old one in several ways, she explained.
In both the hospital setting and in the home, businesses are lost without enough — and the right — employees. All health care employers need to make sure employees are passionate about what they do, day in and day out, Jacobsmeyer noted.
“That part will be, I think, very similar,” she said. “And I’m excited because, in my five years as president over the in-patient hospitals, we saw year-over-year improvement in our employee engagement scores each year. I feel like I learned a lot during that process.”
The new CEO also has experience working with non-Medicare payers, a necessity in the in-patient rehab world.
“It was clear over the last few years that [payers] were really understanding that value proposition, and thus, we got more contracts — and more favorable contracts,” Jacobsmeyer said. “So for me, it’s just really working with the team here on how we currently verbalize our value proposition, and how we maybe could do it differently or better.”
Naturally, she also dealt a lot with the short-term acute care hospitals during her stint as the head of in-patient rehab, helping them solve challenges related to readmission reduction and length-of-stay management.
That experience will transfer well, as will her work with joint venture partners.
Navigating a new segment
As CEO of Encompass Health’s home health and hospice segment, Jacobsmeyer’s time to get up to speed will be fleeting.
Along with her for the ride is Crissy Carlisle, the soon-to-be former head of investor relations for Encompass Health, who will now be the segment’s new CFO.
“We’re going to be focused on recruiting, but I’m going to have a bigger focus on retaining,” Jacobsmeyer told HHCN. “Because when we have that strong foundation, then everything else that’s important — our development of evidence-based medicine approaches to care, the Review Choice Demonstration (RCD), managing visits, relationships with referral sources — those will only be easier to manage if I have a consistent workforce.”
While the COVID-19 pandemic has come with many downsides, one positive has been the health care world’s embrace of innovative technologies. That includes Encompass Health, though Jacobsmeyer said she’s not sold on every new shiny tech advancement that comes out.
“We have a really smart team here to identify … technologies that are going to support our strategic objectives,” Jacobsmeyer said. “We have to be really diligent on how we evaluate technologies that are coming out and make decisions on what will or won’t make a difference.”
In particular, technology can help Encompass Health take care of sicker, more medically complex patients in the home.
“Our home health and hospice team has a long-standing history of delivering the highest level of care to our patients in their homes,” Jacobsmeyer said. “I look forward to working with them to continue this work.”
Harnessing HHVBP
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released the proposed payment rule rule for 2022. In it, the agency suggested a nationwide expansion of the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model.
Encompass Health is in a majority of the model’s operating states already.
“We are aware and listening to the continued conversations around the potential HHVBP model,” Jacobsmeyer said. “As more information becomes available, we will explore this with our team of home health and hospice experts.”
The benchmark for the HHVBP model was originally based on 2015 performance. CMS adjusted that to 2019 for existing home health agencies in its proposal.
“If the goal is truly to drive quality, then we need to make sure that the metrics that are being considered are going to really drive the quality that we ultimately all want,” Jacobsmeyer said.
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