Survey reveals exasperated patients and caregivers blame themselves and others for home care delays

• Despite dedicated health insurance resources, home patients often manage their own complex care coordination
• Interviewed patients said that even the smallest delays in getting care can have serious repercussions on their health and life span

NEW YORK, May 18, 2023 /PRNewswire/ — Cheers tomorrow, a home care innovator, today released the results of a major home care survey. Surveying 500 adult home patients and 500 paid and unpaid health care providers, the survey results point to a disrupted home health care experience for both patients and caregivers.

With care reaching beyond the walls of health care systems and facilities, health care delivery is in a time of transformation. It is expected that 265 billion dollars of caregivers will switch to homes by 2025. 35 million Americans are hospitalized annually, with at least two-thirds discharged to be treated at home. Not surprisingly, 20% of discharged patients receive hospitalized, and many cite complications or delays in medical delivery as a contributing factor. More than a third of patients discharged home switching to more expensive settings over the following year. These avoidable readmissions take a financial and mental cost on patients.

Health insurers have created care teams to manage home patients by coordinating home support, nutritional services, transportation to appointments, and delivery of life-saving medical equipment. Coordination services are intended to reduce overall healthcare costs and help offload the care burden patients and caregivers face during the transition home.

Unfortunately, the survey results show that patients and healthcare professionals are overwhelmed and stressed. Both groups (31%) blame each other when there is a delay in receiving life-saving medical equipment. The findings also show that many patients are left in the dark, unaware of any coordinated care services made available by their health insurers. The vast majority (77%) of patients also reported being the primary contact for their medicine suppliers. The survey also revealed that 59% of patients received poor quality or unreliable medical supplies and equipment.

Interviewed patients also shared their personal thoughts on the unreliability of receiving medical equipment:

• “Delays cause me to miss my doses which often leads to symptoms like headaches.”
• “My health is unpredictable; I always need available oxygen because I suffer from breathlessness from time to time, [a] delay could deplete my current supply and I could die.”
• “I need my dialysis solutions every night, so not being able to get them in a timely manner is life and death for me.”

Caregivers further divulged their frustrations with coordination gaps in home care. 60% of healthcare workers confirmed that they experienced delays or interruptions that prevented their patients from receiving medical equipment or supplies. 58% of healthcare professionals surveyed said receiving poor quality or unreliable medical supplies had negatively impacted their lives or the lives of their patients.

53 million unpaid adult American caregivers spend on average 23.7 hours per week provide care, equal to a puzzling 600 billion dollars in free work annually. Although initiatives such as the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and the Biden administration recent executive decree provide some hope, challenges remain. Coping with care transitions, care coordination, social isolation, physical and emotional strain, and financial hardship will require innovative regulations, technologies, and services.

“It is unacceptable that the healthcare system is adding unnecessary stress to patients when they should be focusing on improving their health outcomes,” he said Vijay Kedar, co-founder and CEO of Tomorrow Health. “Patients and healthcare providers need to be educated about the current services their health plans offer and it is imperative that we address the fragmented healthcare ecosystem now. Streamlining and open communication in payer, provider and provider operations can have an immediate impact on outcomes and patient costs.

Download an overview of the results here.

About tomorrow health

Tomorrow Health creates technology that improves the way home care is ordered, delivered and paid for. Today, the home care ecosystem is fragmented, confusing and expensive, costing the health care system billions of dollars annually. Tomorrow Health manages and improves every step of the process, using technology-driven matching and considering quality, specialty, insurance coverage and geography to match patients with the right providers of more than 40,000 products and services. As a result, Tomorrow Health reduces the time it takes to coordinate and deliver home care to one in four Americans who need it, from prescription to reimbursement, to patient outcomes, ultimately leading to better patient outcomes and reduced costs. . Tomorrow Health partners with over 125 leading health plans and health systems nationwide, including of Pennsylvania Geisinger Health Plan, and is endorsed by Andreessen Horowitz, BOND, Obvious Ventures, BoxGroup, Rainfall Ventures and Sound Ventures. For more information visit www.tomorrowhealth.com or contact [email protected].

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SOURCE Cheers tomorrow