Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH) has teamed up with Signify Health (NYSE:SGFY) to offer in-home clinical and medication management services.
Recognizing that members don’t always take their medications as prescribed, the aim is to lower costs and address care gaps for over 2.3 million health plan members through the partnership.
“Adding an in-home channel to our engagement model enhances the patient experience, and also boosts our ability to meet those health plans’ CMR goals,” Fran Gregory, vice president at Cardinal Health Outcomes, told Home Health Care News. “It’s a truly patient-centric, multi-channel approach that is unmatched in the industry.”
The Dublin, Ohio-based Cardinal Health is a distributor of pharmaceuticals and a manufacturer and distributor of medical and laboratory products. The company also provides performance and data solutions for health care facilities.
Over the last couple of years, the company has become far more involved with home-based care.
The company contracts with health plans, and helps to provide medication therapy management services for that health plan.
Many Medicare Advantage (MA) members qualify for medication management services, as such plans are required to have that capability. One of the most important components of those services is a comprehensive medication review.
Signify Chief Medical Officer Dr. Marc Rothman points out that unlike many of the clinicians and practitioners who are doing comprehensive medication review for MA members, his organization is working in the home.
“What we’re doing is that comprehensive medication review in the home with the member, and then using the outcomes platform to transmit that information back to the plans, clean up the medication lists and help the members to communicate with their PCPs about anything that was discussed,” he told HHCN.
Dallas-based Signify is a value-based, tech-enabled care provider that leverages at-home health risk assessments.
Signify’s in-home evaluation capabilities, and overall alignment with Cardinal Health, made them an attractive partner.
“They were really a natural match for us because they are delivering, primarily, services to Medicare members, and we’re doing the same, so why not combine these services into a patient-friendly, one-time service, where we can do two clinical evaluations in one visit?” Gregory said.
In addition to in-home capabilities, the partnership with Signify allows Cardinal Health to deliver comprehensive medication reviews that are Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) compliant.
Similarly, Rothman believes that the partnership is a “natural marriage.”
“Cardinal Health, and Outcomes – its platform – is a leader in MTM services,” he said. “They’re a leader in logistics for older adults. This helped us build our program to a very high standard, and we have a lot of Medicare Advantage clients in common.”
Ultimately, improving medication access, safety and adherence will improve clinical outcomes, including avoiding unnecessary hospitalizations.
“[Medication access, safety and adherence] have been shown to be linked with meaningful clinical outcomes in older adults with chronic diseases, like hypertension, high-cholesterol, chronic renal insufficiency and congestive heart failure,” Rothman said.
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