Home health agencies are betting on telehealth to grow their businesses over the next couple of years

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US home health agencies (HHAs) — which cater to the growing senior population — are kicking their expansion efforts into high gear: 43% of home health agencies say they plan to bulk up services or extend footprints — and they’re leaning on telehealth to build out their businesses, according to a Definitive Healthcare survey of 159 leaders of US-based home health agencies cited by Healthcare Dive.

While HHAs inhabit the lucrative US home healthcare market that’s expected to present a $225 billion opportunity by 2024 — operating in the space means having to contend with a disproportionately costly senior base, as well as a dwindling supply of home healthcare employees.

Here are the areas of telehealth HHAs plan to beef up over the next two years — and how they open up channels for digital health firms to enter the burgeoning home healthcare market:

  • About three-quarters of HHAs currently offer clinical-grade RPM devices — and 42% will lengthen their list of offerings. Leveraging RPM tech can help an increasingly overburdened pool of home health aides keep track of multiple patients and their health from afar. For example, CarePredict — a startup that developed an AI-enabled senior care platform — crafted a wearable that monitors a slew of behaviors like sleeping, eating, and hygiene — and provides predictive analytics of forthcoming dips in health and function.
  • Half of HHAs provide two-way video solutions, and one-third plan to give these services a boost. HHAs can spread their employer bases out by deploying video-enabled telehealth and cut down the time it takes for patients to connect with care professionals. Florida-based Trilogy Home Healthcare — which employs only about 700 employees to serve 3,000 seniors — tapped virtual care provider Synzi in 2018 to provide telehealth services, including video calls, for its patients — in an effort Trilogy said could reduce hospitalizations for seniors suffering from an array of chronic illnesses.

While HHAs are bullish on telehealth, a tech-averse senior population could pose a barrier to adoption and drag on ROI. Telehealth adoption still hangs low across the board — but seniors are the most reticent adopters across age groups: Only 1% of US seniors have used telehealth, and about 50% are unwilling to try it — compared with the 25% of millennials who are against trying telehealth, per a 2019 American Well Survey.

However, seniors’ meager rate of uptake could be partly attributed to a lack of awareness of telehealth: Many seniors have been barred access due to Medicare’s historically restrictive telehealth reimbursement rules, though some are set to dissipate in the coming year. Another factor contributing to low adoption among seniors could be that platforms aren’t taking their unique physical and cognitive needs into account: Synzi is one firm addressing seniors’ unique needs by offering a video-enabled telehealth service aimed at making it easier for patients who are deaf and hard-of-hearing to use.

It’s likely that as the CMS loosens its stance on reimbursement to become more telehealth-friendly and the market grows to attract more attention, we’ll see more players crop up with senior-focused tech solutions that HHAs can implement — and we could see seniors start to warm to the tech, in turn.

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