The healthcare industry in the US is facing a transformation. It’s estimated that up to $265 billion worth of care services for Medicare fee-for-service and Medicare Advantage recipients will shift from traditional facilities to a home setting by 2025 – and without compromising quality or access. Although rising healthcare costs and disease have increased home care services, the pandemic also generated opportunities to transform them into future-friendly, state-of-the-art systems. This new model will create incredible value for payers, healthcare facilities, physicians, home care providers and health & wellness technology companies.
Some of the dynamics that affected the care-at-home model were created as a result of the pandemic, while others are simply a function of progress. Virtual care exploded in 2021 due to COVID-19 lockdowns – the emergence of telehealth was 38 times higher than pre-pandemic levels. With the ease and time-saving benefits of its use, telehealth is on its way to becoming an industry standard. In addition, an aging – and COVID-impacted – population is evaluating its current needs. Families are looking closely at appropriate post-acute and long-term care options whether that takes place at home, or in a facility geared towards rehabilitation, assisted living, full medical support, or long-term care. It’s clear that with the development of remote monitoring, telehealth, social support, and home modifications, care-at-home will become more and more viable for this older audience. Also, home healthcare settings are being increasingly supported through the emergence of new technologies and capabilities. Advances such as remote patient-monitoring devices – which allow patient progress to be followed in home environments – are game-changers for the healthcare industry.
Care-at-home is truly the wave of the future, by providing the potential to deliver more value and higher-quality care. Options such as telehealth doctor visits, self-administered dialysis in a home setting, and skilled nursing-facility services at home, will transform the patient journey. Consider, for example, someone suffering from compromised mobility and chronic disease who still lives at home. Under the traditional model, if this person were to be admitted to the hospital with a heart attack, they would likely be discharged to a nursing facility due to safety and personal wellbeing concerns. Under a care-at-home model, this same patient might be able to return home with the support of telehealth, at-home nursing care and remote monitoring – allowing for increased comfort, quality of care and a better medical outcome.
In order for this dynamic to be effective, it will need to be determined which services can be effectively delivered at home to treat physical, behavioral and social needs. The model will also need to be economically viable, which may require new reimbursement policies or payment innovations. Physicians’ buy-in will heavily impact the success of the care-at-home model, as will the preferences of potential patients and their confidence in the service as an alternate option to facility-based care.
This kind of cutting-edge innovation can be seamlessly reinforced through partnerships with experienced BPO outsourcing companies. Anexa is an award-winning business process outsourcing company with two decades of expertise and dedicated teams of specialists. Whether your needs are customer-centric with tech support, social media management or marketing campaigns; or non-core business processes that include back-office solutions, Anexa has an appropriate, highly skilled team. Factor in that we also specialize in bilingual services (English/Spanish), there’s no question that we can effectively support the journey into the future of healthcare.
Have questions? Reach out today for information on how Anexa can partner with you on your post-pandemic business processes.