Success in payer innovation, continued progress with workforce technique, and robust efficiency with high quality outcomes. Based on the leaders of Enhabit Inc. (NYSE: EHAB), these areas had been the corporate's key achievements in 2023.

By way of payer innovation, CEO Barb Jacobsmeyer attributes Enhabit's hospital readmission fee to the corporate's success in negotiating with payers and organizers.

“Our strongest asset in negotiating with payers and organizers, and in creating sturdy referral relationships, stays our 30-day hospitalization fee which is 20.5% higher than the nationwide common,” Jacobsmeyer stated Thursday throughout the firm's fourth-quarter earnings name Enhabit. “This high quality addresses the problem of rising healthcare prices and helps payers handle their MLRs. Serving to handle emergency room visits, hospitalizations and readmissions ends in increased affected person and household satisfaction and management over healthcare {dollars}.”

Enhabit, primarily based in Dallas, has 255 residence care areas and 108 hospice areas throughout 34 states.

Within the fourth quarter, Enhabit negotiated a complete of 11 new agreements with Medicare Benefit (MA) payers. Eight of those agreements had been negotiated on an episodic foundation.

The corporate additionally introduced a brand new nationwide settlement efficient January 1, 2024.

“This new nationwide settlement is a sophisticated episodic mannequin that enables us to prioritize entry to residence take care of sufferers discharged from institutional settings,” stated Jacobsmeyer. “Put one other approach, it aligns our incentives with payers' wants for member entry to expert residence take care of a profitable transition residence following institutionalization.”

Jacobsmeyer famous that this nationwide settlement aligns with Enhabit's bigger aim to maneuver away from lower-paying agreements that don’t acknowledge the corporate's potential to attain high-quality outcomes.

Since establishing the payer innovation workforce in 2022, Enhabit has closed 59 new agreements. Greater than two-thirds of those agreements are episodic charges.

Moreover, 25% of Enhabit's non-episodic visits had been in new payer innovation contracts, up 5% from Q1 2023.

In the course of the name, Enhabit leaders additionally shared how the corporate is complementing its natural progress technique with its de novo technique.

“This enables us to enter a brand new market with a low value of capital,” stated Jacobsmeyer. “Probably the most important funding is in personnel as we rent the medical workforce to construct the affected person census to acquire our licensing examination.”

Enhabit added one residence well being and one hospice de novo within the fourth quarter, bringing the entire to eight new areas. The corporate expects to open twelve new areas in 2024.

Enhabit hasn't offered many updates on the strategic assessment, apart from to say the corporate is within the later levels of the method.

“The board, with the help of our advisors, is complete in its evaluation of strategic options, and discussions with events are ongoing,” Jacobsmeyer stated. “We’re within the later levels of our strategic assessment however don’t intend to make the developments public except and till we decide that additional disclosure is acceptable or obligatory. We are going to make no additional remark.”

Within the fourth quarter, Enhabit's internet service revenues had been $260.6 million, down 1% in comparison with $263.2 million within the fourth quarter of 2022. Full yr 2023 internet service revenues had been $1 .04 billion, in comparison with $1.07 billion in 2022.

“We’re making important progress in demonstrating our price proposition to payers as we negotiate new agreements with improved charges and efficiently transfer Medicare Benefit volumes to our Payer Innovation Settlement,” Crissy Carlisle, CFO of Enhabit, stated on the decision. “The influence on income and adjusted EBITDA from this quantity shift has not been ample to beat the monetary influence of the erosion of Medicare fee-for-service quantity.”