Vesta Healthcare’s new General Manager, David Kleinhanzl, shares why he joined the organization and how he’s planning to bring homecare agencies into value-based care.
Why Vesta?
Prior to joining Vesta, I headed up Managed Medicare and Medicaid Long-Term Care Organizations. On the health plan side, it was always difficult to coordinate care when the member had different plans managing their Medicare or Medicaid benefits. With Vesta being a provider of care, we use technology to engage the caregivers in our members’ homes to work across programs. This helps our members get better-integrated care and improved quality outcomes with Vesta’s programs.
Caregivers are essential to aging safely at home
I have worked with many organizations that help the frail and elderly stay safe at home throughout my career. I believe that intensive and personalized care management can positively impact a person’s ability to age safely at home. A big part of what brought me to Vesta is that I firmly believe in the impact the organization can have on our members’ lives through caregiver engagement.
Vesta’s scalable approach of integrating family caregivers and Medicaid-funded caregivers with Medicare-covered health care service delivery has the potential to help many individuals. The caregivers in our members’ homes have the most real-time view of their health status. They know when something isn’t right. This makes including homecare and caregivers critical to improving health care outcomes for all medical services, not just in meeting their needs for assistance at home. One of the Vesta program’s key components is our focus on bringing caregivers’ insights into our members’ medical care. When they identify that something is wrong, Vesta’s providers are available 24/7 to coach them through what to do. Caregiver coaching and education at the right moment can prevent unnecessary visits to the Emergency Room and keep our members safe at home.
Working with homecare agencies that understand the power that their aides have to impact the overall health of their clients is part of what makes our model so successful. Plus, we can help people in Original Medicare or those with a Medicare Advantage plan. So I am so excited about our potential to improve our members’ lives almost anywhere across the country.
Bringing value-based reimbursement to homecare agencies
When integrated into medical care, homecare services can have such a positive effect on our members’ health outcomes. While this is great, the current reimbursement model doesn’t reward these improved outcomes. Homecare is primarily paid for by Medicaid. But when homecare works well, the Medicare program is more cost-effective. Vesta brings homecare agencies into Medicare Value-Based Payment models that coordinate between the Medicare and Medicaid programs and their often unaligned reimbursement incentives. By working with both Medicaid agencies and Medicare health plans, Vesta is uniquely able to achieve the aim of improving quality for our patients in a cost-effective manner for both programs.
In my new role, I will be looking to expand relationships with both health plans and home care agencies across the Northeast that understand the value of engaging home care with medical care. Within the network, my focus is driving engagement and alignment across our partners to ensure the success of our model. With these partnerships, Vesta can enter into risk-based contracts that will reward both Vesta and our homecare agency partners for improved health outcomes among the populations we serve. I look forward to helping our members achieve better health outcomes that allow them to stay safe at home by working with Vesta and our agency and plan partners.
How can agencies/my organization partner with Vesta?
Vesta is actively seeking forward-thinking agency partners that want to help bring together home care and medical care and participate in value based contracts. If your organization is interested in learning more about Vesta Healthcare and partnership opportunities, please reach out to network@vestahealthcare.com.