Home-based Care: Summary & Policy Recommendations

In the summer of 2022, the Regence Health Policy Center highlighted organizations facilitating home-based care including University of Utah’s Huntsman at Home program, Dispatch Health, Strive Health, and Empowerment Counseling Services. Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, technological advancements and regulatory easements have paved the way for these home models to achieve broader adoption. As we see greater adoption of these new models, Regence will be able to offer to it’s members options for the right care, at the right time, in the right setting.

In the appropriate contexts, providing care in settings outside of the confines of a brick-and-mortar hospital offers many benefits for patients, providers, and payors. Improved patient satisfaction, reduced readmission rates, reduced costs, and reduced risk of infection are notable benefits. Each of the organizations highlighted in this series details ways in which their model addresses one or more of these critical areas and it is why Regence is deepening its relationship with these organizations.

Exploring Unique Care at Home Models

DispatchHealth

In this part one/part two series, we interviewed one of the leading home-based care models delivering on-demand, acute care services. DispatchHealth has served over 625,000 patients and is on track to save the industry more than $2 billion in medical costs by 2023.

Strive Health

Chronic kidney disease affects more than one in seven American adults or about 37 million people. Continuing our series on moving care into a patient’s home, we spoke with Alice Wei, M.D. and Senior Medical Director of Dialysis at Strive Health, to learn more about their unique care model as well as how providing care in a patient’s home environment is prime to support whole-person care.

Huntsman Cancer Institute's Huntsman at Home

Huntsman Cancer Institute has been developing a new cancer care at home model since 2018 with the goal of delivering better care for cancer patients and decreasing the length of hospitalizations overall.

Empowerment Counseling Services

Empowerment Counseling Services is dedicated to equipping individuals and families with skills and resources to address mental and behavioral health needs . Their intensive in-home therapy model, delivered in the home, school and community, has the potential to lower costs and improve outcomes and quality of life for youth and their families.

Advancing Policies for Home-Based Care

While home-based care models do offer the promise of addressing many of the challenges facing the health care system, such as cost and quality, these models should only be applied when appropriate for an individual patient’s needs. It is imperative patients have access to that care that is indicated for their specific conditions. Facility-based care and home-based care are complementary delivery models.

View the one-pager summarizing our work on home-based care and the recommended policy changes that increase access and advance broader adoption of home-based care models.

Policy Recommendations

1. Reduce barriers to obtaining Certificates of Need for new home care models.

2. Extend the CMS Hospital at Home Waiver beyond the Public Health Emergency.

3. Support value-based care and other payment models to offer patients care outside of the hospital.

4. Support sustainable policies to support a skilled workforce.

• Amend scope of practice laws

• Invest in Home Care Training

5. Expand and improve broadband access for rural and underserved communities.