The Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver, which the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services launched in November of 2020, has helped accelerate the growth hospital-at-home, Graham Barnes, CEO of Medically Home, which enables clients to scale hospital-at-home, told McKnight’s Home Care in a Newsmakers podcast. The popularity of the program will lead to a five-year extension of the waiver, he predicts. In five years, he expects the program to be in all 50 states with higher volumes.
Medically Home, which provides a decentralized hospital-at-home program, has been in business over 10 years and has 20 health systems across 18 states. The Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver, instituted during the pandemic, has helped the company grow more swiftly, Medically Home CEO Graham Barnes said. Given that the Congressional Budget has scored the waiver budget-neutral, and it is popular among both Medicare beneficiaries and hospitals, he believes Congress will grant the waiver a five-year extension when it expires in March. At least half of typical patients admitted for inpatient level care in the brick-and-mortar hospital can receive treatment through hospital-at-home, he said. The average patient in the program today is over 65 and has experienced an acute episode — usually an exacerbation of a chronic disease such as heart failure or COPD, with a pneumonia or other infection. The concept still meets challenges from hospitals around concerns for patient safety and change management. Not everyone can be admitted to the program, he explained. Patients must pass social and clinical checks for admission. Among the social checks: There must be a caregiver at home who provides support to the patient.
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