VGM & Associates has released a new guide for the post-acute home care industry.
Specifically, the new guide – one of three VGM “playbooks” released in 2024 – gives post-acute home care providers a roadmap to value-based care and how to position themselves for those opportunities.
“As we continue to navigate the pivotal topics that are shaping the future of the post-acute home care industry, this publication offers VGM members perspectives on how best to implement patient-centered care in order to continue driving positive change in their businesses and beyond,” Mandi Rodgers, vice president of marketing for VGM & Associates, said in a statement.
VGM & Associates is a member service organization in the health-care industry that provides a wide range of services and solutions to its members, primarily in the durable medical equipment (DME) and home medical equipment (HME) sectors. The organization, for example, offers group purchasing power, educational resources, advocacy and business support to help its members.
Over the past several years, health care has slowly but steadily migrated toward value-based care – payment arrangements that reward providers for high-quality care instead of the volume of services delivered.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and its CMS Innovation Hub has publicly said it hopes to have the majority of Medicare beneficiaries in value-based care programs in the not-so-distant future. An example of that goal has been the nationwide rollout of the Home Health Value-Based Purchasing (HHVBP) Model, for instance.
And as fee-for-service Medicare has shifted toward value-based care, so, too, have private payers.
For post-acute health care providers, embracing value-based care and making true inroads can be a difficult task, however.
For starters, value-based care requires providers to track, analyze and report extensive data to demonstrate the quality of care and patient outcomes. Many home-based care organizations lack the sophisticated data management systems needed to collect and analyze this data effectively.
On top of that, value-based care models can involve financial risk-sharing, where providers may be penalized for failing to meet certain benchmarks – or rewarded for exceeding them. For many home-based care providers, particularly smaller organizations, taking on financial risk can be daunting.
VGM’s playbook contains “insights and approaches from industry leaders regarding patient-centered care and proven methods to boost patient satisfaction and results,” according to an announcement related to the guide’s rollout.
Among the topics in the playbook: how to enhance patient outcomes while optimizing costs; perspectives on innovative, holistic approaches; how outcomes related to wound care, orthotics and prosthetics services can elevate patient care; and how to harness technology to improve outcomes and the patient experience.
“It is our goal to influence and actively shape the post-acute home care industry to raise awareness of its impact, and we believe this playbook is an important step in this direction,” Rodgers continued.
