As PruittHealth makes progress on its goal of adding more private rooms to its facilities over the next five years, the operator plans to launch its own SNF-at-home type of service, dubbed PruittHealth Family First, in its home state of Georgia later this year.
Starting as a 10-county pilot program, the family-owned operator with more than 180 locations in Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina sees expanding at-home services as a must for skilled nursing operators moving forward as it continues to adapt to the modern SNF patient.
“There’s obviously more of a demand and shifting consumer expectations for home services,” Neil Pruitt Jr., chairman and CEO of PruittHealth, told Skilled Nursing News. “I think the people that are going to survive post-pandemic are going to be the ones that are willing to listen to the consumer and model their product to meet the changing consumer demands.”
Early on during the pandemic PruittHealth saw its skilled nursing [admissions] decrease by 19% while at the same time its home health [admissions] increased 42%, according to Pruitt.
“You’ve heard a lot about the SNF-at home model. And this is our foray into offering it through PruittHealth,” he added.
Starting with its north Georgia facilities, PruittHealth Family First will present new opportunities for PruittHealth patients to be cared for in their own home.
“We’ve just gotten so many calls with family members regarding short-term rehab and once they get home what do they do,” Pruitt said. “The care is a little much for what they can handle. Our Family First initiative is having aides go into the home and assist family members in the activities of daily living.”
Home recovery care programs have continued to expand in acute and post-acute care since the first pilot programs were approved in 2018. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) furthered this trend with the acute hospital care at-home waiver, announced in November 2020, which provided hospitals unprecedented regulatory flexibility to treat patients in the home.
More pilot programs have since popped up across the country, with some of the first ones, like UnityPoint at Home, pushing their model into new states and skilled nursing facilities.
If more skilled services are needed, more PruittHealth home health services can be incorporated into the care.
PruittHealth recently submitted licensure for the model with the state of Georgia and anticipates getting approved next month.
“I think in the next 90 days, we will be off and running,” Pruitt said. “We’ll get it up and running and make sure the model works before applying for additional counties. Our next target area would be metro Atlanta.”
He remains “optimistic” that the model is going to work as SNFs across the country have been forced to rethink how they deliver care.
WellSky, a data analytics company focused on providers across the care continuum, saw the pandemic drive referrals away from skilled nursing facilities and toward home health programs in 2021 with a 15% increase in discharges to home health programs that would normally be reserved for skilled nursing. At the same time, referrals to a more institutional setting dropped upwards of 20%.
More than nine in 10 Medicare beneficiaries, or 94%, wanted to receive post-acute care in the home rather than a SNF, a poll released late last year revealed.
“Early on I predicted that bed capacity in our industry would decrease by 20%,” Pruitt explained. “I think you’re going to see more private rooms and then as we change our product, I think people will be more willing to utilize our services because they are cost efficient, they create the best outcomes and so we’re excited about how this all fits together.”
Pruitt said the model will be funded through private pay initially built on short-term rehab patients. PruittHealth Family First will also have its own dedicated staff.
“[We hope] our family culture will attract the caregivers needed and that’s why we’re starting small, we’re starting with only 10 counties here in Georgia and we’re going to figure out all the challenges like what we can do to attract staff and how the payer model will work,” he said. “We think we’re going to create a seamless model of care that’s really going to be consumer centric, and will help us to remain the market leader and post-acute care.”
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