30: The number of estimated HealthHubs Aetna has planned to put in place by year's end in metro Atlanta, and 500-600 nationally.
Playing House: UnitedHealth Group announced a $100M investment in the Health & Housing Fund, which will allow for more than 1,000 new homes to be built for those struggling with housing insecurity. The first three housing developments will be built in DC, Texas, and Oklahoma. UnitedHealth will continue to focus on social determinants of health, such as food, transportation, and social isolation.
At Home CHF & Cancer Care: Intermountain Healthcare is beginning a new service to provide hospital-level care to patients at home. The service, in partnership with Intermountain’s value-based care spinoff, Castell, will focus on those with conditions like congestive heart failure, infection, and some cancers. Eligible patients will go through an orientation at the health system first, then will receive in-person and virtual checks.
Model T: How do value-based care management delivery models differentiate? Taking capitation or risk are increasingly popular, but how do these models interact with, or compete with, the traditional healthcare system? It’s a fair question to ask if thinking about these new innovative models that have popped up in the last five years targeting chronically ill patients. Most that we’ve seen lack a true physician-led service and most provide care and support virtually. One I saw had an org chart with 125 some “care coordinators” but no physician and no relationships with the insurer’s provider network. Another was focused on COPD, but its primary partner was the hospital, which raises questions given one in five with this condition end up readmitted. Yet another focused on worker injury but lacked any behavioral health services. This is not to say that there isn’t a need for these care management models. They are usually offering a way to more cost-effectively manage sick patients who, until now, have been treated primarily by a depleted primary care workforce. Question is do these new models add costs and confuse patients, or do they save the system money, and should they align with providers or payers? Short answer is, it depends largely on the patient population, the cost trend, and the services being offered.
MedTech Partners With IDN: Geisinger Health System has signed a 10-year partnership with medtech company Siemens Health. The partnership is described as a value based one, which is interesting as most value models concentrate on primary care.
Vaccination: Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois has asked healthcare practitioners to make sure that children are getting needed vaccinations during this crisis. In their June 2020 provider newsletter, chief medical officer Derek Robinson noted, “the reality is that we must consider the possibility of having to confront other epidemics…join us in outreach efforts to parents of children aged 0 to 2 years and adolescents aged 9 to 13 years regarding the importance of getting all scheduled childhood immunizations.”
Women Win: Billy Jean beat Bobby and Madonna beat out Michael Jackson and, increasingly, women’s healthcare beats out men’s health as priority for health systems, insurers, and primary care practices. Even internist Mitchell Baruch, MD, who mainly treats adult and senior males, says, “I’ve started to think that my patients would be better at complying and outcomes if they were women”. Last week’s women’s health sector developments can be found by clicking here.
Prime Time: Football player Deion Sanders used to have this distinction back in the early ‘90s with America’s Team, the Cowboys, but these days, in healthcare anyways, America’s Store is Amazon and it is having a prime time of its own. Amazon has already partnered with health systems offering bundled product packages for populations like diabetics, and now has done so with insurers. Molina health plan members get Amazon Prime free for three months, then at a reduced price. This is the latest example of Amazon’s entry into the business of healthcare. 74%, in a poll we did of consumers, said they’d buy medicines online via Amazon; other polls have similar results.
You Grant: Blue Shield of California announced another $300,000 in grants to nonprofit organizations providing mental health support in San Diego and Alameda counties. The grants are part of Blue Shield’s ongoing BlueSky initiative, a multi-year effort to enhance awareness, advocacy and access to mental health support for middle and high school students in California. The initiative was launched last fall and provides behavioral health counseling services for students in Alameda and San Diego counties. The $300,000 will be divided into 18 different grants – nine each in Alameda and San Diego counties. These organizations were chosen because of their range of health interventions that include arts, sports, advocacy, music, leadership, multilingual/cultural, sexual and gender identity, and mental health tele-counseling.
Extra Point: There are some things you just don’t do. You don’t change the channel when Scooter calls the picket fence play in Hoosiers or when Andy Dufrane gets his fellow inmates beers on the roof of Shawshank Prison. You don’t pay with coins unless you’re Kramer buying a calzone or rolling through the Jersey Shore toll booth circa 1978. You don’t give your kids strawberry eclairs after 9 o’clock and if you’re at least 50, you don’t wear pants, you wear slacks. You don’t discharge a senior with a heart condition, not without orders for a home health visit or let dad go to the cardiologist by himself, not when he’s got vertigo. You don’t get mad at mom for asking you what day it is for the seventh time in the last hour. You celebrate when she finally gets it right. You don’t do multiple procedures on the same day for the same patient and expect to be paid the same for each. You don’t take hospitals lightly or assume addiction can be cured in three years, much less three months. And on Father’s Day weekend, you don’t let the nursing home’s decision stand. You appeal to whomever you can to let dad out for a few hours to walk you down that aisle, even though he’s got Parkinson’s and even though he could contract the virus. It‘s your wedding after all, so you manage to find a way.