At a time when more home-based care providers are entering value-based arrangements, some are expanding their capabilities with home-based primary care. Companies like HarmonyCares and Empath Health have been able curb costs and increase access to care by deploying their primary care models strategically. HarmonyCares participates in value-based care arrangements in a number of ways, […] The post HarmonyCares, Empath Health Leveraging Home-Based Primary Care To Drive Value appeared first on Home Health Care News.
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At a time when more home-based care providers are entering value-based arrangements, some are expanding their capabilities with home-based primary care.
Companies like HarmonyCares and Empath Health have been able curb costs and increase access to care by deploying their primary care models strategically.
HarmonyCares participates in value-based care arrangements in a number of ways, including the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) and the Accountable Care Organization (ACO) REACH program. The company also partners with Medicare Advantage (MA) plans, specifically around their high-needs, frail populations.
“Value-based care really ties you to the outcomes for the patient, and also ties you to the bigger picture value creation that allows us to go out, and basically provide those services in the home,” Matt Chance, CEO of HarmonyCares, told Home Health Care News. “It’s an area we feel strongly about. It’s an area that we want to continue to advocate for, and protect, overall, as a place of service.”
HarmonyCares is a Troy, Michigan-based home-based primary care provider. The company delivers services to individuals with complex health needs, and its model includes home health, hospice, palliative care, radiology and laboratory services. The company operates in 40 markets and 17 states.
Having home-based primary care services under its umbrella has allowed the company to more effectively deliver on its value-based care arrangements. This is because HarmonyCares’ model takes a “trusted resource” — primary care clinicians — and moves them into the home, according to Chance.
“If you have these … primary care physicians that are employed within our model, then you have a lot of opportunity to be able to engage patients directly in the community, and be able to really show attribution to what you’re doing and the effect that you’re creating within that population,” he said. “It’s fairly unique, in terms of what you see is the status quo in the health care system, which is, in order to see a provider, you would have to go to a brick and mortar.”
In general, individuals living in the U.S. often have limited access to primary care. This means that many U.S. adults don’t have a regular physician, place of care, or a longstanding relationship with a primary care provider, according to a report from The Commonwealth Fund.
This means that many U.S. adults are missing what Chance refers to as the “main navigator” for patients who are working their way through the health care system.
“Your primary care physician really is the person you’re going to, as a patient, to ask for advice on just about everything,” Chance said. “Having that person that kind of navigates and builds that relationship and drives engagement, both with the patient and the family, is vitally important in order to drive patient compliance in terms of adhering to clinical protocols, to be able to understand what’s going on in the rest of the care continuum. We see that as the locus of effect, overall, in those populations, to be able to make real impact.”
HarmonyCares, notably, has seen success under the ACO REACH program. Overall, the company checked in with a net savings rate of 23%. This made the company the second-best cost saver that participated in the model in 2023. Plus, the company is a top performer in MSSP.
“Both of those programs see somewhere between a 17% and 20% drop in medical expenses, over the course of a year for a patient that we’re able to engage,” Chance said. “The way that you see that driving out is through inpatient admissions that are reduced overall. We see about a 10% drop in year one in inpatient admissions, we also see about a 15% drop in ED admissions as well. We’re seeing all these things that are both markers of high-quality care, but also markers of being able to save dollars for the U.S. health care system and driving a better patient experience too.”
Similar to HarmonyCares, Empath Health is involved in value-based care arrangements in a plethora of ways.
Empath Health has contracts with several ACOs in its service areas across Florida. The company also has contracts with MA plans for palliative care services.
The Clearwater, Florida-based Empath Health offers hospice, home health care, palliative care, grief services, primary care services and more. It is the parent company of 17 affiliates and two philanthropic foundations.
Tarrah Lowry, chief operating officer of Empath Health, explained that having a home-based primary care arm has been integral to the company’s participation in value-based care.
“What we’ve been able to do is use the home-based physician practice and clinicians to stabilize those high risk patients with [congestive heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease], and diabetes,” she told HHCN. “It really is helping avoid costly exacerbations.”
Empath Health has also been able to reduce 30-day readmissions by embedding transitional care management protocols into its post-acute workflows. This effort was led by the company’s primary care team.
Though Empath Health has seen success with its primary care arm, Lowry was quick to point out that home-based care providers that don’t have these services can still collaborate with other organizations.
“Let’s say there is a home health and or hospice organization that you know doesn’t have a physician practice, they could partner with a physician practice and still be a partner in meeting these goals,” Lowry said.
Ultimately, Lowry believes that primary care has been a key tool in its care delivery model.
“We’ve been able to look at the big picture of a patient when they are on, [for example] home health services, and then they need a physician to help them,” she said. “We’re able to create longitudinal care plans that integrate palliative care and home health into that primary care anchor.”
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