Zero-Cost Pharmacy Care for Home Health Patients: AnewHealth's Roman Fry

About This Episode

AnewHealth Chief Growth Officer Roman Fry explains how what he describes as the only integrated pharmacy partner with HCHB helps home health agencies keep high-medication-burden patients out of the hospital, at no added cost to the agency.

Transcript

Tom: Welcome back to the Last Visit First live podcast from the Home Care Home Base User Conference in Orlando, Florida. My next guest, Roman Fry. He's the Chief Growth Officer for Anew Health. Roman, welcome to the pod.

Roman: Tom, thanks for having me, and thanks to Home Care Home Base as well for having us. What a great event — it's got a great energy to it, and I love being a part of it. Can you imagine not being here? No, you'd be missing out.

Tom: Yeah, can you imagine not being here? There's a lot of people that didn't come, or they didn't get invited, or they decided not to come and send somebody else. But I can't imagine not being here, so —

Roman: I'm glad — we still sponsor and get the invite every year, and they've been a great partner to us for many years.

Tom: Yeah, it was great to see the twenty year reunion with the videos and all that, and all the people that I used to work with and work for, and people that are working here now. It's just a great team, it's fun, it's a good time.

Roman: They pulled out all the stops this year. What's going on at Anew? Man, a lot is going on at Anew. So we're having some record-breaking growth. If you look at — we're serving the most chronic complex patients, typically on eight or more medications. We know those are the patients for home health agencies that, you know, they're serving a lot of, and they need to keep out of the hospital from readmitting, and they need to manage their care. So we're having tremendous growth with that category. We're starting to be around eighty thousand new patients this year on our pharmacy services that are looking for a better way.

Tom: Wow, that's really cool. So explain how it works. So I'm a home health agency, I just call you, and how much do you charge me and all that kind of stuff?

Roman: No, so the great part is our revenue model is based on being in network with PBMs, so that's where we're reimbursed. So it's actually no added charge to the home health agency at all — that's how many partner with us. We're also the only integrated pharmacy partner with Home Care Home Base, so we're proud of that, for home health. And we also have other mechanisms for a home health agency to be able to get patients to us. But the way it works is: if you identify a patient — let's say their ability to take meds, they're a three, they're a two, they're a one, where they have some kind of med burden where they need support — once that's identified, we actually are an extension of what the nurse already does in the home. We do a full assessment on the patient, spending about 30 minutes with them, learning about their meds and getting them right once and for all. And eight out of ten patients, once we do that assessment, choose for us to become their pharmacy, where we pill pack and ship to them monthly on a 30 day basis. And we give them virtual pharmacist support to manage their care. And you know, if you're working with these folks, there's a significant pill burden — it's confusing about what you're taking, "did I just take that med a couple hours ago or not," especially with the patients we serve. We help alleviate that burden for them, and they love the service — that's why we run about a seventy-eight net promoter score with our patients. Plus seventy-eight.

Tom: Wow, that's awesome. So it's pill packs — so it's not filling a pill reminder, I get rid of that?

Roman: Yeah, so you get rid of the — you see all the pill sorters, you see the plastic bags and all the vials — we get rid of that for the patient, and we actually put them in tear-off packs that are morning, noon, and night strips that are already prepackaged for them. So it comes in a simple box, it's easy for them to manage, and — so they takes away that caregiver burden too, we see a lot. And that's another point — we're seeing more and more caregivers reach out to us, wanting support, when they're trying to look for a better way for their husband and wife, or one of their parents.

Tom: That's good. Yeah, I think about my dad — he alone takes all kinds of different medications, and we're always filling the pill packs and all that's good to deal with. How long does a patient stay on service with you guys? Is it only for the sixty day episode?

Roman: No, no, no — so actually it's a great question. Once we get a patient on service, kind of once they get through that first, you know, ninety day period, which there's a lot of change going on, a lot of things happening — once they get through that period, they tend to stay on service for about three years, is the time. And the only reason it's three — sometimes you've got chronically ill patients that we serve. The average age is about sixty-four, and the average number of meds they come to us with is about thirteen. So you're talking about the most clinically complex in a lot of cases. And so sometimes just the transition of care, maybe to a skilled nursing facility or something, could stop service. But it's a great tenure when they're on. And we have patients that have been on, Tom, for eight, nine years too.

Tom: Wow. So tell me this — so I'm a home health agency, I give you a patient, introduce you to a patient, the patient converts. I discharge — say two episodes, so I take care of the patient for a hundred and twenty days, maybe ninety days, they convert, and then they're still your patient. When they come back, if they have a crisis or you guys see a problem, do you call me?

Roman: Yeah, so we get that question a lot. So we're actively working on that, so that we can develop the indicators for when we should reach back out to the home health agency. Some of those are gonna show up a little bit more passive — a patient's not always gonna say, "hey, I think I need home health again, can you call them." So what we're actively working on with some partners is a passive indicator of sorts, to where we see sudden changes in their profile, and being able to alert the home health agency so we can have more of a refer-back type of program. Yeah, it's really fun.

Tom: That's awesome, that's totally cool. That's a true advantage to why I should use you. Okay, how hard is it for a nurse in the field — so the nurse in the field wants to contact, or the patient wants to get a referral to you guys — how do they do it?

Roman: Yeah, people work with us in one of two ways. Way number one is through Home Care Home Base, where a nurse can opt a patient in. So they can have a conversation live, via bedside in the home, and if the patient wants to hear more and learn, they send us that patient directly, and then we have a team — call, we rename and call them the First Impressions team. Those are US-based resources, they're gonna get on the phone with that patient, so you can trust who they're talking to and what they're talking about.

Tom: So I have to call you to give you a referral?

Roman: No, no — so everything's done digitally through Home Care Home Base. It's a — you push a button, and then we're gonna engage that patient typically within a few hours. Like we're not gonna wait forty-eight hours, it's gonna be very quick. And that speed's important, because we see a lot of the readmits happen in those first seventy-two hours, right? So it's important that we get all the engagement and the support system around them quickly. So that's what we're doing — so the nurse can do that. Other home health agencies we work with, including some larger national partners, they don't want maybe an added burden for that nurse, and that's okay too — that's where we get an upload of the data for patients on eight or more medications at the end of that day, and then we engage those patients from there on the home health agency's behalf. So it just depends on which model they want to go to. The great point is you've got flexibility.

Tom: That's awesome, that's totally cool. You also have another business called Tabula Rasa. A lot of the people in this room are starting to think about PACE programs and some of those kind of things. Give us a high level — what's Tabula Rasa?

Roman: Yeah, 2023, Tabula Rasa was pulled together with ExactCare to form Anew Health. And a lot of people know our go-to-market brand in home health as ExactCare — part of this bigger conglomerate. Really, when you look at it, Tabula Rasa was built upon being the leader in PACE pharmacy, and today we serve — of all the PACE beneficiaries in the country that are going to be all-duals, and you know, those that need the most support and a lot of home health — we serve forty percent of the beneficiaries of the total market today that we do pharmacy for.

Tom: Wow.

Roman: What you have is a lot of skill and experience — a combined over thirty years. So fifteen years on one platform, fifteen years on the other. And by the way, ExactCare is the oldest pharmacy doing what we do in kind of long-term care pharmacy at home. So you put those combined platforms together, we've got a great set of talent that knows how to manage these patients. So it's really exciting. We also have an intellectual and developmental disability pharmacy business called SafeDose, out of Indianapolis — that's where we're serving all the group homes and the patients that they manage. And so again, we're planning to be — and we're already — the independent national leader in duals pharmacy. So that's why we exist, to serve those disproportionately. We'll pick up patients that aren't duals, and we serve over 33 states in Medicaid — just direct Medicaid as well, which is great. We serve all 50 states throughout the country, we're all Medicare-licensed, State Board of Pharmacy approved to serve kind of everyone, everywhere. But that's really who we major in, and that's who we deliver for, and that's where pharmacy's not been really built for them — but we build it for them.

Tom: That's awesome, that's awesome. So remember, no cost to the home health agency.

Roman: No cost.

Tom: We help them keep them out of the hospital. We help manage medications. We help the nurse with medication management. And we do a lot of things for the patient for a long period of time. It's all pretty good. It's pretty good.

Roman: We do, we do — you got it, you got it right.

Tom: Roman, you guys are on the right side of the Home Care Home Base booth here in the hall, so I know they can stop by and see you here. If they want to catch you outside of the conference, how do they get a hold of you or somebody on your team?

Roman: Yeah, you can reach out to me directly. Hopefully we can put the information up, but it's romanfry@anewhealthrx.com. I'm on LinkedIn as well, so a lot of different ways to engage with me, but I'd love to have the conversation. We've got great team members on site too — we've got three here today, two of those are both clinicians, they're clinical pharmacists, so a lot of times our call point and the folks we're working with are more clinical in nature. We've got the team right here that can engage in those conversations.

Tom: And I know you guys are always hiring too, so if somebody wants to work for you, they should reach out to you that way as well.

Roman: Absolutely. We do have account manager roles open actively, and we're planning some more recs as we grow, so reach out to us on that. We are always looking for great home health experience talent that wants to serve the patients that we serve.

Tom: All right, thank you Roman. Appreciate it.

Roman: Perfect, good. Thank you for coming. Great job, love it.