Workers shortages, rate of interest cuts, and Medicare Benefit penetration will proceed to be developments within the residence well being care market in 2024. These usually are not new. What’s new, nonetheless, is how suppliers plan to fight the issues arising from these developments.

House well being leaders are targeted on lowering margin compression, utilizing extra expertise, leveraging synthetic intelligence, working smarter with MA plans and extra within the new yr.

House Healthcare Information heard from six of those leaders within the residence healthcare trade, who shared their ideas on the largest developments, challenges and alternatives that can form residence healthcare in 2024 and past.

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We’ll proceed to see the significance of conventional Medicare within the residence well being care trade, with growing momentum for Medicare Benefit. Knowledge and analytics to drive the worth proposition shall be a key focus for 2024. It will likely be important that the sector has the information and outcomes to exhibit the broader worth impression. Along with capability, residence care additionally gives a extra optimistic affected person expertise with decrease prices. value.

We’ll proceed to see challenges within the labor market impacting market capability. Moreover, the margin impression of the payer combine and particular payer methods designed to maximise care shall be important in 2024. Exploring modern methods to make use of expertise and its impression on potential effectivity and healthcare supply will proceed in 2024.

I see residence well being care as an enormous driver of value financial savings and delivering higher high quality of life and outcomes for sufferers by 2024. The necessity to talk that to the payer group and authorities is essential. We should try for effectivity as a problem in 2024, but in addition for seizing alternatives. Care coordination with different key social determinants – similar to private care, transportation, meal supply, and bodily exercise, in addition to medical care coordination with the well being care system, major care physicians, and rising referral sources for high quality and timeliness of care, will all be essential. within the coming yr.

There are nice alternatives in market progress as increasingly more individuals require residence care providers. We’ll search to extend capability available in the market via workforce options, efficiencies and distinctive partnerships in care supply and coordination, all of which is able to drive higher market progress.

– Richard Ashworth, president and CEO of Amedisys

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A number of challenges from 2023 proceed to impression residence care – most notably the not too long ago finalized 2024 cuts to Medicare residence care reimbursement charges. We’ll proceed to advocate for the reversal of those cuts, and with assist for our place in Congress, we’re optimistic that progress will come.

Because the workforce scarcity continues, residence care affected person referrals stay unfilled. Recruiting and retaining gifted physicians is important. We will anticipate to see extra versatile recruitment approaches throughout the sector, together with part-time, versatile working and gig work.

In 2024, the emphasis will more and more be on the effectivity of insurers in coordinating residence care providers. For instance, a number of state well being plans are already taking steps to scale back licensing necessities and consolidate the managed long-term care (MLTC) market. In New York, the state is requiring that poorly performing MLTC plans be absorbed into better-performing plans – a course of that’s now underway. Additionally search for insurers to speed up the shift of dual-eligible Medicaid recipients to built-in Medicare-Medicaid plans – a development we're seeing in New York State and amongst for-profit Medicare Benefit insurers nationally.

Progress alternatives in 2024 embody elevated linking of residence care sufferers to community-based psychological well being suppliers – a promising possibility to handle America's psychological well being disaster. Using expertise – together with AI – is quickly evolving in residence well being care to enhance affected person outcomes, cut back administrative burdens for medical deliveries, and enhance administrative effectivity.

– Dan Savitt, president and CEO of VNS Well being

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I feel small companies which are barely worthwhile will live on in 2024, primarily as a result of the proprietor can’t promote at a worth that the proprietor personally wants. However working the company will proceed to take an emotional toll on the homeowners, additional tiring them and creating higher battle down the highway.

There are many challenges on the horizon, however America wants extra nurses. It is going to take one other 5 to 10 years earlier than provide can meet demand.

– Invoice English, president and CEO of Correct House Care

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I imagine that in 2024 there shall be continued labor shortages and strain to extend labor wages throughout the board – particularly for patient-facing workforce members. I anticipate continued growth of MA plans into rural markets. The most important well being care reform we may make can be to ban the usage of the time period Medicare in all these industrial insurance coverage merchandise. It's utterly false promoting.

There shall be tight entry to capital to assist acquisitions on account of excessive rates of interest, elevated political uncertainty and tensions stopping us from taking a coherent nationwide strategy to financing the growing older objectives that everybody needs.

Different future challenges embody margin erosion on account of greater labor prices, decrease revenues on account of Medicare Benefit plan penetration, and an absence of high administration expertise that’s as expert and adaptable as we now have traditionally seen within the healthcare market segments intensive care. We merely want extra leaders who innovate and clear up issues instinctively, versus medical doctors and managers who wait to be instructed what to do by their giant monetary planning and evaluation groups.

When it comes to capabilities, we’re discovering methods to combine AI into our medical documentation processes to scale back variability in documentation high quality and cut back the time burden on physicians. We will start to work with payers to shift our care focus from post-acute and measuring hospital readmissions to a extra pre-acute and aging-in-place mannequin that primarily measures unplanned hospital readmissions.

There’s additionally room for higher integration and utilization of non-skilled residence care as a driver for entry into the post-acute care continuum, slightly than pretending it's 1969 and we're all trying ahead to the discharge of our subsequent Medicare affected person after a five-day keep within the hospital. . We will higher leverage expertise and digital care fashions to extend the labor productiveness of our present workforce by at the very least 30%. Provide will not be growing, so you could drive labor effectivity and productiveness via expertise that additionally reduces the burden on physicians.

– John Kunysz, president and CEO of Intrepid USA Healthcare Providers

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As issues stand now, 2024 would be the first yr that the majority states will tip over 50% of Medicare Benefit penetration. On a nationwide degree, we’ll all should cope with the truth that MA is right here to remain and is about to outline the way in which we ship care.

On this final level, 2024 is the yr that tomorrow's residence well being supplier plans to thrive — not simply survive — with Medicare Benefit. The house care trade will expertise disruption in 2024 and past. It's an thrilling time to be a part of this trade.

– Brent Korte, CEO of Frontpoint Well being

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The market has by no means misplaced confidence within the progress potential of residence care, nor has it misplaced confidence within the significance it has within the post-acute phase. I feel confidence will get better as acquisitions happen and extra consideration involves it. I feel within the M&A chunk you'll see the market dynamically shift again towards investor prowess. Folks will wish to spend money on the long-term mechanisms of residence care.

The Medicare Benefit development continues to quickly outpace trade preparation except you construct one thing particularly for MA. The world has modified. The flexibility to take care of the 50+ conventional Medicare episodic combine in residence care has mainly simply disappeared. It's simply not one thing that exists within the markets we're . It is rather tough to take care of such a mixture.

Now the flexibility to develop the enterprise and develop episodic care sadly comes with the failure of some smaller firms or the acquisition of these firms in order that we are able to seize that market share and seize episodic enterprise.

What our firm does is we give attention to understanding precisely how these Medicare Benefit payers work, constructing fashions that assist them remotely and which are powered with knowledge and analytics via our Carelytics system. Fashions the place we are able to sit down and perceive find out how to work with sufferers longitudinally, make referrals internally, after which tackle the enterprise that these payers really want in markets the place they're battling suppliers.

It comes from making a extremely environment friendly mannequin of care supply, which is primarily targeted on having finite nursing sources and managing them as finest as doable. In our case, we take every part that doesn’t should be managed by a nurse out of their palms and let others deal with it. We don't need them engaged on these duties. We’re targeted on executing extremely succesful nurses and the issues solely they’ll do.

– G. Scott Herman, Founder and CEO of New Day Healthcare