Penn State Health, Highmark, Contessa Partner to Launch Home Care Joint Venture

Penn State Health has joined forces with insurer Highmark Health and home care provider Contessa to launch a joint venture that will offer acute care and recovery services at home.

Dubbed Penn State Health Home Recovery Care, the joint venture will offer both hospital-level care and skilled nursing care in patients' homes through a combination of in-person and virtual services. The joint venture will leverage Contessa's risk-based model that utilizes a technology platform and provides patients with the devices they need to connect with their care team.

"Patients who qualify for either model are sent home with remote patient monitoring devices and any durable medical equipment needed," said Travis Messina, CEO of Contessa, in an email. "They are seen by an acute care registered nurse twice a day and round with their Penn State Health physicians on a provided tablet."

Some of the conditions that will be treated via the joint venture include pneumonia, cellulitis, congestive heart failure, urinary tract infections and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

The goal of the joint venture is to lower costs while improving patient outcomes, increasing patient satisfaction and decreasing readmissions, Messina said.

The joint venture will begin operations at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania, in the first half of 2022. It will initially be available to Highmark Medicare Advantage and commercial health plan members. There are plans to expand the model to other health plan members in the future.

Highmark Health, and its subsidiary Allegheny Health Network, have been in a partnership with Contessa since November 2019, when the organizations collaborated to launch a home-based acute care model for the payer's members receiving care at Allegheny Health Network hospitals.

"Highmark Health is committed to making healthcare simpler, smarter and more seamless, which includes enabling individuals to heal in a place that is more familiar and comfortable — their home," said Dr. Monique Reese, senior vice president of home and community care at Highmark Health, in a news release. "We are thrilled to expand Home Recovery Care to provide central Pennsylvanians safe, comprehensive, and high-quality acute-level care in their home."

As hospitals filled up with COVID-19 patients last year, interest in home healthcare soared, and as a result, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services loosened restrictions on providing acute care outside a hospital setting. The agency launched the Acute Hospital Care at Home program, which allowed participating hospitals to treat certain acute care patients at home using telehealth and remote patient monitoring.

Consequently, major providers invested in hospital-at-home programs, including Kaiser Permanente and Mayo Clinic. The health systems invested $100 million in Medically Home, a Boston-based company, to scale a home care model for their patients.

Further, the health systems, along with other prominent organizations like Geisinger Health System, ChristianaCare, Johns Hopkins Medicine and UnityPoint Health, launched a coalition last month to advocate for maintaining flexibilities around providing hospital-level care at home. Penn State Health is not a part of the coalition.