Humana Plans To Close Majority Of Its SeniorBridge Home Care Locations

Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) plans to close shop at most of its SeniorBridge locations before the end of year.

SeniorBridge is a home-based care organization that offers complex chronic care management for seniors. The organization’s care management team includes nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers and caregivers.

Humana originally acquired SeniorBridge back in 2012 as a part of a larger effort to shift more care into the home. At the time, Humana was attracted to what it considered SeniorBridge’s “unique model” of care management, and its ability to keep older adults out of the hospital.

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Overall, SeniorBridge has 23 centers in nine states.

Currently, Humana plans to shutdown SeniorBridge facilities in Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, Texas and Virginia. For now, the seven facilities in New York will remain open.

“At Humana, we are committed to delivering industry-leading care that best supports the needs of our members and patients,” a Humana spokesperson said in email to Home Health Care News. “We introduced a $1 billion value creation initiative earlier this year to increase our investment in our Medicare Advantage products and achieve greater organizational efficiencies that better meet the needs of our evolving business. As part of these efforts, we have made the decision to discontinue operations for our SeniorBridge home care services and permanently close most SeniorBridge branch locations by the end of this year.”

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Indeed, Humana revealed its reconstruction plan in February after taking a major hit in terms of new Medicare Advantage (MA) members.

The company is one of the nation’s largest MA insurers.

As far as Humana’s involvement in the home-based care space, it has accomplished this through CenterWell Home Health, formerly Kindred at Home, which has more than 350 locations in 38 states.

The company officially completed its rebrand of Kindred at Home to CenterWell Home Health in September. It was part of a three-phase rebranding strategy.

“Integrating home health operations into Humana’s home solutions business remains on track as we continue to build and scale our value-based home health offering to improve patient health outcomes nationally,” Dr. Andy Agwunobi, president of Humana’s home solutions segment, said in a press statement at the time. “The rollout of the CenterWell Home Health brand reinforces our efforts to expand our home health capabilities to meet the needs of our patients.”

Looking ahead, Humana is preparing for the transition that comes with closing these locations.

“We are committed to supporting impacted associates and clients through this transition and will ensure proper continuity of care for clients as they transfer to new providers,” the spokesperson said.

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