A healthcare trend to offer in-home care, which provides urgent medical care in patient homes and saves emergency room costs, is picking up speed.
Pittsburgh, Pa.-based UPMC, for example, launched an in-home urgent medical care service in September 2021 called the In Home Urgent Care PLUS program, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported March 21.
The program only serves people with UPMC Health Plan insurance coverage and has answered more than 200 calls since it began, Michael Boninger, MD, president of UPMC Innovative Homecare Solutions, told the Post-Gazette.
"It saves costs, improves quality and greatly improves patient satisfaction," Dr. Boninger said. "The goal is determining whether they need to get admitted to the hospital at all."
At least 30 percent of emergency room visits could be cared for at urgent care centers or retail clinics for a lower cost, according to the Post-Gazette. About $4.4 billion could be saved each year if patients who otherwise would've gone to the emergency room instead accessed lower-cost sites, a 2013 American Journal of Managed Care study found.
The pandemic sped up the movement into lower-cost outpatient or in-home care settings, which will affect hospitals' revenue growth and margins, according to a March 15 report by credit rating agency Moody's.
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