Diversions between home health providers and skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) is a constant in the post-acute care space. One home health provider — Elevate Home Health Group — is sidestepping this dynamic entirely by forming partnerships with SNFs.
Specifically, the company has partnered with Lilac Health Group and affiliated management companies, as well as other SNF providers in New Jersey.
The goal of these partnerships, for Elevate, is to improve overall health outcomes and capitalize on growth opportunities.
“We are working closely with their facilities and their ecosystem, not just referrals from their facilities,” Elliot Kohn, CEO of Elevate, told Home Health Care News. “We are creating a true continuum of care, working with the communities and [addressing] the struggles that specific communities have.”
Relatively new on the home-based care block, Elevate is a New Jersey-based home health provider that was launched by Kohn and Steven Schwartz, the latter of whom serves as the company’s president, in January 2021.
In addition to its New Jersey operations, Elevate also has agencies in Florida and Texas.
Another key benefit to building relationships with SNFs is that it sets the stage for Elevate to lean into referral-source opportunities, according to Schwartz.
“The SNF that has been in a community for many years will introduce us to their referral sources,” he told HHCN. “We see that happening in real-time. It got us into hospitals and gave us a seat at the table. It gives us that opening, as a preferred provider that their SNF partners are already working with.”
Schwartz also noted that Elevate gains local insight from these relationships with SNFs. In fact, one of the current deals in the company’s M&A pipeline exists due to advice from one of its SNF partners.
“There’s a lot of local information they’re able to filter to us, that we can then leverage to grow the business beyond just that synergy between [our organizations],” he said.
Elevate’s collaborations with SNFs are rooted in Kohn’s background in the SNF-at-home space in particular.
“I actually was piloting a hospital-at-home/SNF-at-home program back in Jersey City about three years ago,” Kohn said. “It was an interesting experience. It definitely takes a lot of logistical planning and working with your community base and your patient base. Working with those SNF-at-home programs is definitely the wave of the future. It’s doing it right that is the hard part.”
Aside from Elevate’s SNF-related endeavors, the company is focused on strengthening communication with referral sources — something Kohn pointed out is easier said than done.
To accomplish this, Elevate is transparent with its data.
“One of the things that we offer to all our referral partners, our facility partners and our physicians is our data,” Kohn said. “We offer all of our referral sources monthly status-check meetings. Those meetings are solely based on reviewing current patients that they referred to us, the status of those patients, who our primary contact is, [their care plan]. That way the providers know we care about the outcomes of the patients.”
Kohn believes that some home health providers shy away from being transparent in the same way because of the fear it would reveal missteps.
“Many providers don’t want to open themselves up to data because it always turns into, ‘What if we did something wrong, or what if we didn’t provide services as fast as we said we would?’” he said. “If you’re working as a provider that truly has the patient’s care in mind, that’s the important part. It’s a learning process. It’s about accountability.”
Looking forward, M&A is top of mind for Elevate.
Specifically, Elevate has an eye on expanding its operations in Florida and adding an agency in Virginia as well. The company is also looking to expand its service lines to include personal care.
“Elliot is doing the cold calling and the sourcing,” Schwartz said. “We’re kind of being a broker and being the provider at the same time.”
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