Dive Brief:
- Humana is stepping deeper into in-home primary care through its health services subsidiary, CenterWell, which launched a new primary care at home program for seniors in select Georgia and Louisiana locations on Wednesday.
- In the new program, called CenterWell Primary Care Anywhere, a team of clinicians provides routine primary care services including blood draws, vaccinations and prescription management for older adults in their homes, for the same co-pay they would pay in a doctor’s office.
- The program builds on Humana’s acquisition of Heal, a home-based primary care provider that the Kentucky-based health insurer bought earlier this year for an undisclosed amount.
Dive Insight:
Humana simplified its corporate structure into two businesses last year, splitting its insurance benefits segment and health services arm CenterWell. Along with offering specialty and retail pharmacy, CenterWell says it is the largest provider of senior-focused primary care and home healthcare in the U.S.
CenterWell Senior Primary Care and sister brand Conviva Care Center cover more than 272,000 seniors across 12 states, in more than 250 centers, according to Humana. The payer plans to add 30 to 50 new centers each year through 2025.
CenterWell Primary Care Anywhere is launching in Atlanta, Savannah and Columbus in Georgia, and Baton Rouge and New Orleans in Louisiana, where CenterWell Senior Primary Care has or plans to soon open brick-and-mortar locations.
In the future, the program could expand to 10 other southern and southwestern states where it also has offices, a spokesperson told Healthcare Dive.
The program is available for patients with Medicare Advantage plans or those on original Medicare that contract with CenterWell.
With the new offering, Humana is competing with other in-home senior primary care startups like Patina Health and other health insurers like CVS that are elbowing into the home to provide more preventive care and head off worse (and more expensive) outcomes down the line. Senior-focused primary care is especially of interest, given the growing population of older adults and rising popularity of lucrative MA plans.
Analysts say Humana has been ahead of the curve in the pivot toward home-based care.
Humana was one of the first major payers to pursue acquisitions of home care providers to better control patient costs and provide more integrated care, while keeping a greater share of the healthcare dollar in-house. Those acquisitions include Heal, a deal that closed in the first quarter this year, and home health giant Kindred, a deal that stems back to 2017.
Humana has a joint agreement with frequent PE collaborator Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe to co-fund new primary care centers under the CenterWell brand, though Humana has moved to assume more control.
Correction: A previous version of this article misstated the joint venture agreement between Humana and WCAS.
