Home Health & Hospice Week

Law- and policy-makers appear to be on board.

Multiple publicly traded home health and hospice companies specifically called out this factor in their earnings calls for 2021.

“Demand [is] still moving into the home,” pointed out Amedisys Inc. COO Christopher Gerard in the Baton Rouge, Louisiana-based chain’s Feb. 24 call. That “was accelerated with the pandemic,” Gerard noted.

“We believe that the demand is definitely going to be there to drive care into the home, that it’s going to be increasing,” agreed Amedisys CEO Paul Kusserow in the call. “Care in the home is the right space,” Kusserow maintained. Amedisys is well positioned to take advantage of even the hospital-in-the-home developments with its purchase of Contessa, company officials noted.

LHC Group Inc. COO Josh Proffitt pointed out “this journey of higher acuity care in the home” in the Lafayette, Louisiana-based chain’s Feb. 24 earnings call. “In-home healthcare has so much momentum,” he said later in the call.

“The one silver lining from the pandemic that I think is absolute, is the pandemic created an environment where the country recognized that high-quality care can be provided in the home, period,” said VITAS Health Corp. CEO Nick Westfall in the Feb. 25 earnings call of corporate parent Chemed Corp. “The government has also seen that total cost of care for those patients is reduced compared to alternative settings. Those are positive trends for post-acute home-based providers on a go-forward basis,” Westfall said.

LHC Group CEO Keith Myers pointed to third-party polling data showing that 86 percent of adults and 94 percent of Medicare beneficiaries prefer to recover at home after a hospital stay. Plus “85 percent of all adults and 90 percent of those over age 65 say that expanding home healthcare options should be a government priority,” he highlighted in the call.

“The pandemic has … further reinforced home as a preferred care setting,” said Encompass Health Corp. CEO Mark Tarr in the Birmingham, Alabama-based company’s Feb. 2 earnings call. “We expect stakeholders will increasingly divert admissions away from skilled nursing facilities to higher value [inpatient rehab facilities] and home health providers,” Tarr predicted.

It’s not just home health and hospice providers that are seeing this trend.

There is “a clear policy consensus that patients want to be treated in the safety and comfort of their home,” Myers maintained. PHE regulatory waivers and “solid progress” with the Choose Home bill are evidence, he said.

“Never before have we seen such a sustained and significant emphasis from Congress and from [the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] in expanding in-home healthcare services,” Myers continued.

“The COVID pandemic has affirmed the value of taking care of elderly and disabled consumers and patients in their homes,” said Addus HomeCare Corp. CEO Dirk Allison in the Frisco, Texas-based chain’s Feb. 25 earnings call. “Home is not only one of the safest and most cost effective places for them to receive care, but is also the place where most elderly individuals prefer to be,” Allison said.

Home care companies like Addus allow “these consumers and patients their wish to stay at home,” Allison said. “We believe that this heightened awareness of our value of home-based care is favorable for our industry and will continue to be a growth opportunity for our company.”