Payers Turn to In-Home Screening Kits for Chronic Preventive Care

Preventive screenings are now shifting to the in-home setting through in-home screening kits, as payers like Humana innovate ways to carry on primary care and chronic disease prevention services remotely.

“During these complex times, patients should not be distancing themselves from their doctors,” William Shrank, MD, chief medical officer at Humana.

However, accessing primary care services—which are key to supporting overall health and reducing healthcare spending—can be challenging for at-risk members and others following social distancing standards.

“Because of the pandemic, many of our members – who are primarily seniors – have not been comfortable leaving their homes for routine health care,” said Shrank. “Now more than ever, proactive, preventive care can be lifesaving and life-changing for our members.”

As a result, some payers have taken steps to make preventive care services more home healthcare-friendly.

Humana has committed to mail out over a million preventive care packages that members can use in their homes.

The in-home preventive care packages are designed to support  chronic disease prevention for members with diabetes or colon cancer. Both diabetes and cancer are among the top ten most expensive chronic diseases in the US.

Members can take the test in their homes to detect diabetes or colon cancer developments as early as possible.

While providers can conduct many preventive care services through telehealth and virtual care platforms, sometimes physical screenings are necessary to identify conditions in their early stages.

“Many interactions with health care providers can be conducted virtually, and we encourage telehealth whenever possible,” Shrank explained.

“However, patients and doctors should work together to determine when in-person visits are needed, and we are taking every precaution to make sure those visits are safe and that our members have confidence to make the best decisions for their health.”

The kits come at no additional cost for qualifying Medicare Advantage members. Medicaid beneficiaries who qualify may receive the diabetic prevention kit.

Members can receive a preventive care kit from June to September.

Humana is not the only payer to take this approach.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota (Blue Cross) also started targeting Medicare Advantage members with preventive screening kits designed for home healthcare. These kits were for diabetes A1C and microablumin test for in-home chronic disease management as well as colorectal cancer screening kits.

The payer conducted outreach calls in June 2020 to Medicare Advantage members in order to ensure that they were aware of these preventive care kits for in-home care.

“In the midst of this crisis, seniors have been greatly impacted and are at disproportionate risk,” Craig Samitt, MD, president and chief executive officer of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, said at the time.

“With our hope to keep our senior members safe and assure that they receive the preventive care they need, Blue Cross is both expanding coverage and proactively reaching out to help them navigate options to get the care they need.”

Preventive care measures such as these are essential as experts anticipate quality of care for chronic disease management to take a major dive.

Almost three-quarters of all NCQA HEDIS quality measures are expected to experience a negative impact largely due to delayed preventive care and ambulatory visits, a study by CitiusTech revealed.

Specifically, the experts identified the decline in preventive care as a major influencer to this, with the drop in provider visits, screenings, immunizations, and therapy sessions.

Members with diabetes and cardiovascular disease are particularly prone to negative outcomes, they added.

Mostly, the experts turned payers toward technological solutions: improving virtual care quality measures, implementing better interoperability, leveraging data science for outreach, and using natural language processing. They also noted that smaller provider networks could be helpful in controlling quality of care.