When Humana began to seriously invest in at-home care in 2018, no one would expect how integral the system of care could be throughout the pandemic, said Humana CFO Susan Diamond.
As president of Humana's home business before becoming CFO, Ms. Diamond said her role was to rethink what the company's ambitions were within the home care market. She landed on one point: providing "a full continuum of care capabilities" within reach of members and their homes.
Focusing on at-home development will continue to be a priority for Humana, Ms. Diamond said on "Becker's Payer Issues Podcast."
Below is an excerpt from the podcast. Listen to the full interview here.
Susan Diamond: There were three primary things in that space. One is to just simply expand access to those types of services. So many of these models are available on a more limited basis just geographically because they're fairly new models. So we are working with a number of partners to significantly expand access through deeper penetration in markets.
The second is a strong commitment, really across all of humanity, to focus on and implement value-based principles in all aspects of care delivery. So you see a lot of this in primary care where you'll see more advanced value-based models in the delivery of whole person care, where the physician will truly take full accountability for the total cost of care and bring additional support mechanisms to bear within their practices, to support a wider range of patient needs.
The third priority that we're really focused on within the home with Humana is to begin to create greater connectivity across this range of capabilities. What we have found is that each of these capabilities — whether it's primary care, urgent care, hospital-level care — when it's brought to the home, we see better outcomes when we can leverage them in combination and in coordination.