Sharecare Expands Its Home Care Offerings
Sharecare Expands Its Home Care Offerings unknown
Sharecare Inc. (Nasdaq: SHCR) has expanded its home care offerings.
The company will now bring its care management and transitional care programs for high-risk populations to more than just Medicare Advantage beneficiaries.
“We are going to leverage our homegrown network of around 450,000 caregivers – combined with our technology wrapper – to manage the transition for both chronic and episodic nature,” Sharecare COO Jaffry Mohammed told Home Health Care News. “[And] to improve the quality and contain the cost across lines.”
Sharecare is a digital health company with a virtual platform that helps people manage all their health needs in one place, and access health records and other information. The Atlanta, Georgia-based company also lets users stay on top of their personal health through its comprehensive suite of services.
In 2021, Sharecare purchased CareLinx — a tech-enabled home-based care company that coordinates personal care services and offers clinical care services — from Generali for $65 million.
Prior to the expansion, Sharecare served Medicare Advantage (MA) plans. In fact, the company previously announced that over 400 MA plans were utilizing CareLinx to scale in-home care supplemental benefit programs in 2022. This move broadens the company’s core base.
Overall, the expansion is a move to further improve care transitions, coordination and continuity.
About $25 billion in annual health care costs are the result of the absence of continuity and coordination during care transitions from the hospital to the home setting, according to a study published by BMC Health Services Research.
For Sharecare, it was important to have a hand in averting costly outcomes, including hospitalizations, readmissions, or even admission into a long-term care facility.
As part of the expansion, Sharecare has also made significant investment into building its analytics layer, which includes the risk stratification from a clinical standpoint, according to Mohammed.
“Sharecare will be leveraging our upfront risk stratification assets to certify the population that is at high risk,” he said. “For certain chronic and episodic conditions, we have created a clinical pathway that can be administered to caregivers at home. That triggers the engagement with our care management and care coordination clinical staff, who can then make a determination whether we want to dispatch somebody at home, to manage the care, or to manage the transition from outpatient surgery or an inpatient hospital stay.”
Plus, Sharecare has already been able to see positive outcomes with health plans, including a 30% increase in clinical house-call visits for risk adjustment, a 30% bump in annual wellness visit referrals and 28% of enrollees supported with companionship.
Ultimately, this move is representative of Sharecare’s larger mission.
“This goes back to the mission of our founder — ‘all together better,’” Mohammed said. “We want to tie every component of health care delivery to a platform with a digital-first approach. Our core intent is to reduce costs and increase quality and access for our customers.”