DispatchHealth

Amid the ongoing government shutdown, home hospital care continues to be unavailable to Medicare and Medicaid patients, removing a pathway of access for this vulnerable group. Fierce Healthcare was one of several publications which covered this topic last week, interviewing chief medical officer for DispatchHealth, Pippa Shulman: “You're basically saying to Medicare beneficiaries who are using their Medicare Part A services, you can't have this so but folks on commercial insurance, folks who get Medicare Advantage, folks who live in states that do permit this, they are still able to access these services in some cases," Shulman said. “So we've kind of created this inequity, and states have very different rules, and sometimes the rules that aren't always clear.” She went on to explain that an extended pause in the availability of acute care in the home can slow innovation that's critically needed. “Hospital systems, businesses...are preparing for two different realities,” Shulman said. “They're thinking about this program that has such an opportunity for expansion and innovation, and so they're planning for new geographies, to go into new hospitals, to expand into new use cases at the same time as they're planning for a potential interruption of uncertain length and uncertain impact. And that is an incredibly difficult thing to do and an incredibly difficult thing for any market to absorb. And so what we really have is a stifling of innovation and growth to something that is almost universally desired by physicians, patients, caregivers [and] the systems.” Read more: https://lnkd.in/g6t2Xawv

Beautifully said. We’ve seen firsthand how receiving acute care in the comfort of home, surrounded by what’s familiar and supportive, can positively impact patient outcomes. Delivering complex care at home allows us to meet patients where they are and provide the care they need in the setting that best supports recovery, comfort, and continuity of care.

I am very excited to reunite with colleagues and friends at the National Association of ACOs #FallConference2025 in Washington, DC this week. I will be talking about the role of home based medical care in a value based world - one of my favorite topics! It's not too late to register - see you there! https://lnkd.in/eqHs9e8j #HomeBasedCare #HomeBasedMedicine #HospitalatHome #EDinHome #ValueBasedCare #NAACOS #ACO #AccountableCare #HealthPolicy

DispatchHealth has been included in TIME’s inaugural ranking of the World’s Top HealthTech Companies 2025, reflecting our commitment to making healthcare more accessible and human-centered. For us, home isn’t just where care happens—home is where your health is. https://lnkd.in/geZfre8A

Thank you Boston Globe Media and Marin Wolf for highlighting this incredible challenge we are having. I am saddened, disappointed, and maddened that our UMass Memorial Medical Center had to stop admitting patients into our Hospital at Home program on Saturday (9/27) morning to wind down our census prior to the waiver lapse at midnight on 9/30. As we face generational challenges (aging population, rising acuity and complexity) in our health systems' capacity to care for our communities, this legislative lapse in the hospital at home and telehealth waivers will eliminate a mission critical tool for our health systems. This will increase ED boarding, increase ED wait times, decrease capacity for quaternary transfers and severely hamper our health systems abilities to care for our most complex populations. This is a catastrophic step backwards a decade in how we provide hospital care in rural, suburban and urban geographies across the country. https://lnkd.in/ectgC_n2

The U.S. is facing a hospital capacity crisis at the start of flu season leaving patients with limited access to needed care. Beginning today the expiration of the Acute Hospital Care at Home waiver forces Medicare and Medicaid patients back to overcrowded brick-and-mortar hospitals, where they’ll wait in Emergency Department holding areas and hallways instead of receiving care in the safety and comfort of their homes. A long-term or permanent pathway for complex care at home is urgently needed.

Vendor Contracts Don’t Scale. Partnerships Do. Too many hospital-at-home programs stall because they treat their MIH provider as a vendor, not a partner. The result? Friction, burnout, and failure to scale. At the Hospital @ Home Leadership Summit, Jacob Keeperman and Stephanie Murphy, D.O., FHM (DispatchHealth, Medically Home) reveal how to transform relationships into true partnerships—upskilling clinicians, building patient ownership, and creating team cohesion that drives growth. Miss this, and your H@H program risks becoming another pilot that never makes it to prime time. ——— Join us in Orlando! Regulatory & Policy Forum Dec. 3, Main Summit Dec. 4-5 https://hubs.li/Q03L4VQs0 #HatHLeadershipSummit #HospitalAtHome #HomeCare #HomeHealthcare

The Massachusetts Health Policy Commission recently released new data on hospital at home (Hospital Alternative) programs in the state, offering insights into how this model of care is taking shape. Today, there are eight active programs in MA, two of which are enabled by DispatchHealth. According to the report: - The number of hospital at home discharges in 2024 were nearly ten times greater than in 2020 (from 461 discharges in 2020 to 4,523 discharges in 2024) - Hospital at home discharges in Massachusetts were similar to traditional inpatient discharges in terms of patient race/ethnicity, gender, and community income. - Length of stay among hospital at home discharges was higher overall and for nine of the top ten DRGS than traditional inpatient stays. - Patients were far less likely to be discharged to skilled nursing facilities (0.8% vs 11%) and far more likely to be discharged to home health (40% vs 25%). The report pulls these threads together saying, "...hospital at home may also offer advantages that reduce the need for SNF care, such as longer lengths of stay translating to more time for recovery and potentially greater patient mobility in their familiar home environment leading to better functional outcomes." Read more: https://lnkd.in/gV4rM4nt #hospitalathome

Proud to have Richard Rothman, MD and Michael Maniaci co-chairing this year’s Hospital @ Home Leadership Summit. » If you’re building or scaling H@H, this is your room. « Learn more: https://hubs.li/Q03JzqT10 Cleveland Clinic Florida Mayo Clinic #HospitalatHome #HaHSummit

This piece from Newsweek last week details some of the reasons hospital care provided at home can be an important resource for patients. "Hospitals aren't always the best place for healing. While they offer 24/7 access to medical care and quick response times in an emergency, the unfamiliar setting can have adverse effects on patients' health. Studies have associated the noises, lights and disruptions of a hospital room with poor sleep and insomnia which can persist even after discharge. And about one in five people have 'white coat hypertension,' a condition where blood pressure is normal at home, but spikes in medical settings due to stress, according to research from Harvard Medical School." Read more: https://lnkd.in/gyBAWqDt #hospitalathome