Hybrid Care Provider, Payer Team Up to Expand Care Access in Rural Michigan

Homeward, a hybrid care provider focusing on rural healthcare, has partnered with Priority Health, a nonprofit health insurer, to expand access to its services in Michigan.

Through the partnership, Priority Health Medicare Advantage plan members will be able to access Homeward's suite of virtual and in-person care options.

Launched earlier this year, Homeward aims to disrupt traditional rural healthcare. The company provides a combination of telehealth, in-person care via mobile clinics in the community, and in-home remote monitoring.

Under Homeward's hybrid care model, clinicians can use remote patient monitoring (RPM) to detect medical problems and then schedule an in-person visit in the home or at a community-based mobile clinic to diagnose the patient and begin treatment. Patient care is provided through telehealth and in-person visits.

Homeward's care teams can conduct physical exams and basic diagnostic tests. They can also refer patients who need more complex care to regional health systems and specialists if necessary.

Per the new partnership, Priority Health plan members in 14 Michigan counties will be able to receive care from Homeward starting in the fall. The organizations plan to extend the offering to members across the state eventually.

"This partnership supports Priority Health's longstanding commitment to bring innovative, personalized solutions to our members, while advancing our efforts to shift from the historical fee-for-service model to true value-based care," said Carrie Kincaid, senior vice president of market development at Priority Health, in the press release. "Rather than requiring members to travel far distances to receive care, Homeward's innovative approach brings care to the member in their home and at convenient locations within the flow of their daily lives."

In addition to the new partnership, Homeward announced the closing of its series B funding round, which totaled $50 million. This adds to the initial $20 million investment made by General Catalyst in March. The company's founders, Amar Kendale, Bimal Shah, MD, and Jennifer Schneider, MD, all formerly worked at Livongo.

According to Schneider, CEO of Homeward, the company will focus on partnerships with the small number of health plans covering Medicare beneficiaries in the US.

"Homeward's partnership with Priority Health is a monumental step to provide convenient, personalized, and high-quality care to Medicare beneficiaries across Michigan, but we are just getting started," said Schneider in a press release. "Our target market is tightly distributed among a small handful of health plans. In fact, approximately 90 percent of Medicare-eligible beneficiaries who live in rural markets are covered by seven payers. This funding enables us to reach rural populations even faster in partnership with health plans and local physicians."

Research has shown that virtual care options could boost medical appointment completion rates, especially in rural populations.

A study published in June revealed that telehealth can drive rural appointment completion rates up by about 20 percent. Researchers examined 110,999 patient visits, of which 13,013 occurred through telehealth. All data came from the West Virginia University Department of Family Medicine from January 2019 to November 2020.

But barriers to virtual care access persist among older, rural populations, even as telehealth boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Though telehealth usage by Medicare fee-for-service (FFS) beneficiaries increased 63-fold in 2020, beneficiaries in urban areas used telehealth about 50 percent more than rural beneficiaries. Data also shows that there was a 20-fold jump in telehealth use among rural Medicare FFS patients during the first year of the pandemic versus a 140-fold increase among their urban counterparts.