Home Health & Hospice Week

The ranks of hospitals offering Hospital At Home services has risen significantly since CMS announced the program in November.

“With our latest 5 additions, 56 hospitals across the country are now utilizing the Acute Hospital Care at Home program to expand hospital capacity to better treat patients during the #COVID19 pandemic,” Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Seema Verma said in a Jan. 4 tweet.

When CMS launched the program Nov. 25, it listed six hospitals as participating. Aside from the Twitter mention, CMS hasn’t issued any further details on the program, including which hospitals are participating beyond the initial six.

In its November announcement and a frequently asked question set, CMS defined the differences between the HAH program and traditional home care services, including that the “Acute Hospital Care at Home is for beneficiaries who require acute inpatient admission to a hospital and who require at least daily rounding by a physician” (see HCW by AAPC, Vol. XXIX, No. 43).

One participating hospital could be San Juan Regional Medical Center in Farmington, New Mexico. It is “coordi­nating care and providing close monitoring to COVID-19 patients and those with signs and symptoms of the virus while they recover at home through our COVID to Home (C2H) clinic,” it says on its website.

C2H “has treated more than 700 patients since April. It is available to COVID patients who do not have a primary care provider who are either discharged home for self-isolation or do not require hospitalization,” the hospital continues. “C2H providers conduct routine telemedicine visits, either by phone or video conferencing, to follow up with the patients to ensure safe and effective care at home until they have recovered.”

Goals of the program include preventing hospital­izations and emergency hospital visits, minimizing COVID exposure, and conserving PPE, SJRMC says. “With COVID cases up across the state, health care leaders realized they would need to do more to keep patients out of the hospital when possible,” hospital spokesperson Laura Werbner told the Durango Herald newspaper.