Humana’s Retail President: Kindred at Home Acquisition Will Transform the Health Care Ecosystem

Close to 90% of older adults want to receive care in their homes as they age, according to a study conducted earlier this year by the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

But outside of just aging in place in general, during the COVID-19 crisis, individuals of all ages have also become more aware of the option to receive care in their homes.

Giving patients that option to choose where – and also how – they want to be cared for is likely to become one of the major transformations in the U.S. health care system in the coming years, Alan Wheatley, the retail segment president at Humana (NYSE: HUM), said at Better Medicare Alliance’s Medicare Advantage 2021 Conference on Thursday.

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And health plans like Humana are undoubtedly a major driver of that transformation.

“An example of how MA plans are working [within] the health care ecosystem is what my company is doing, with the 100% purchase of Kindred, the largest home health company in the U.S,” Wheatley said. “To me, that puts Humana and its MA members in a position to have care delivered in their home through our value-based ecosystem to coordinate care across the broader continuum.”

Based in Louisville, Kentucky, Humana is one of the largest MA health plans in the U.S., serving about 4.5 million members. Over time, however, the company has become a hybrid of health plan and provider, especially after its acquisition of Kindred at Home.

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In April, Humana announced that it would acquire the remaining 60% of Kindred at Home at a $8.1 billion valuation. On its end, Kindred at Home – which is being rebranded as CenterWell Home Health – has locations in 40 states, employing roughly 43,000 caregivers who deliver home health, hospice and community-based services to more than 550,000 patients annually.

Under Humana’s CenterWell umbrella, Kindred’s hospice and community-based services operations will be divested.

“We know when care is properly delivered in the home and coordinated across primary care physicians, customers see greater satisfaction,” Wheatley said. “And they see significantly lower readmission rates, so they’re able to be happier and healthier, and able to stay in their homes.”

Humana has also invested resources in other home- and value-based care initiatives elsewhere, including in primary care.

“It’s about allowing people to interact with our health plan and the provider in the way that they want to,” Wheatley said. “Think about it: The way people shop today, the way people do their banking, the way they run their businesses have evolved. It’s immense, and health care is no different.”

Technology is not required to care for people in alternate sites like the home, but it does help.

The proliferation of more applicable technology is another reason why Wheatley believes home-based care is going to explode even more in the future.

“If you think about the power of cloud computing, the power of mobile and the power of wearable technologies,” Wheatley said. “We in health care are just scratching the surface on how to leverage these different technologies.”

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