In late February, Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) announced that it would be exiting the Employer Group Commercial Medical Products business, meaning it would further focus on Medicare Advantage (MA), Group Medicare, and, of course, its CenterWell health care services arm.
The company offered up the rationale for that move – as well as its future-facing strategy – at Cowen’s 43rd Annual Health Care Conference on Tuesday.
“For us as an organization, we have a rich opportunity in Medicare Advantage. We are growing our Medicare and Medicaid businesses quite well,” Humana CEO Bruce Broussard said at the event. “And, our CenterWell provider assets are doing quite well.”
Those CenterWell assets include one of the largest home health networks in the country, which Humana acquired from Kindred at Home. CenterWell Home Health has more than 350 locations across 38 states.
Paired with that network is CenterWell Primary Care, which is specifically bent toward senior-based and value-based services. Humana also believes that primary care use will accelerate home health utilization.
With significant home-based and primary care capabilities, Humana has long held the belief that it can drive value more seamlessly – to its health plan members and to others.
That value-based model is growing rapidly. For instance, in November, the company said it was set to add 450,000 more members to its value-based home health business by the end of the year.
“The trend of value-based payment is a trend that will be with us for quite some time,” Broussard said. “The trend is a line that [is moving upward], but it doesn’t go straight up. There’s little bumps here and there. … I would say that we are highly committed to that payment model and highly committed to that population.”
And, despite the now uncertain MA payment landscape, Broussard said Humana remains committed to MA – and its value proposition – overall.
“I really believe that MA has such a great value proposition, over Medicare fee for service, that people will choose MA,” he said. “What’s being proposed does not deteriorate that, it’s not anywhere close to what the value is, and so we see a really good opportunity to continue to grow. And we’ve found, in the years that there’s really pressure on the rate notice, we do much better. And I feel that, in 2024, we’ll do that.”
In February, Humana CFO Susan Diamond’s comments reflected a similar perspective, but especially as it pertained to home health care.
CenterWell Home Health expects year-over-year decline in Medicare fee-for-service home health admissions, but growth elsewhere that will more than make up for that.
“While we have strategies in place to continue to take share in fee-for-service Medicare, we do acknowledge it is a shrinking market with the increasing penetration of Medicare Advantage,” Diamond said in February. “Accordingly, our projected admission growth for 2023 reflects a slight decline in fee-for-service Medicare admissions year over year, more than offset by strong growth in Medicare Advantage.”
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