Considerations for Moving to a Value-Based Care Model

Many home health and hospice agencies are considering a permanent move into delivering value-based care. Centered around providing an optimal experience for the patient, value-based care is rapidly gaining popularity as an alternative to fee-for-service care. For patients that are being cared for in their own home, it is particularly appealing as it allows multiple caregivers with different functions to provide an optimal level of quality care to patients to improve their quality of life. Adopting a value-based care model may seem daunting, but it is actually something that most agencies are naturally moving towards. In addition, there are tools that can help if your agency is ready to make the move into a more value-based care model. 

How Value Based Care is Improving Quality of Care and Reducing Hospitalizations 

Improving care coordination is essential to delivering the highest quality of care for home health and hospice agencies. In the current landscape, there is little coordination between caregivers , specialists and primary care providers. WIthin the value-based care model, there would be much more coordination, leading to less fragmentation of care. Taking a proactive approach to developing opportunities for providers and caregivers to communicate regarding a patient’s condition will result in more optimal care delivered by the agency - improving patient outcomes and enabling providers and caregivers to feel more satisfied with the care they are providing. 

Broadening Your Mindset Regarding Value-Based Home Healthcare 

It’s important at the outset of adopting a more value-based care approach to managing a home health or hospice agency that you determine what type of model works best for your agency and your patients. Developing an effective strategy for implementation can only come after finding the model that is right for your agency. Developing a more holistic, patient-centered approach to healthcare may also involve broadening the mindset surrounding what total patient health actually means. A patient’s physical, mental, and even social health can paint the full picture of their quality of life and underscore the importance of taking a more whole person view of healthcare. 

Enhancing Value-Based Care with the Right Technology 

While setting the right mindset around administering care to your patients is essential before moving into a value-based care model, it is also important to look at the ways technology can benefit your agency in administering and fostering that care. For example, Thornberry EMR offers complete interoperability which helps foster good care coordination and communication between providers. With the right talent all working together on a patient’s care, your agency will be able to improve not only retention of qualified caregivers but also patient outcomes.