Signify Health CEO Kyle Armbrester says “the biggest takeaway from 2021 by far is just how important it is that we activate the home as a site of preventive care.” In an interview with MobiHealthNews, the CEO said it’s a “watershed moment to activate the home as a health hub at scale.”

Dallas-based Signify Health is walking the walk to making healthcare more accessible outside healthcare facility walls. This week, the company launched a new Partner Program with seven initial partners. The value-based ecosystem is focused on improving home healthcare through connecting hospitals, health systems, payers, and patients nationwide.

Signify Health believes in connecting people to the “right follow-on care, whether that’s seeing their primary care physician or a behavioral health provider after their in-home visit, or activating home care, transportation, or food assistance after an acute episode,” Armbrester said in a statement.

The CEO sees innovation around home and community value-based healthcare and aims to work with partners who share the company’s vision of supporting value-based care. Ambrester says he’s “eager to see the innovation resulting from this program.”

A patient-first program

The tech-enabled healthcare provider taps technology, advanced analytics, and healthcare networks across the U.S. for its payment programs. The new program is part of its effort to close care gaps and advance a shift to value in healthcare.

The inaugural program picked partners who are activating the home as a key site for care and recovery; providing value-based providers with insights, tools, and support for risk; and embracing a whole-person approach to care integrating clinical, social, and behavioral factors.

Partners, per Signify Health, include:

• Medalogix – A Nashville-based data science and machine learning company leveraging innovative technologies that enable home health and hospice clinicians to provide the right care at the right time, improving outcomes and reducing cost to the healthcare system.
• Quartet Health – A company that works with health plans, systems, and provider groups to deliver speed to quality mental health care for all.
• ReferWell – A Connecticut-based health technology software and service company focused on driving efficient care transitions to get more people to preventive care and specialist visits.

Signify’s platform reaches more than 1.4 million people annually through In-Home Health Evaluations, and the new platform’s partners will have access to episodes of care programs managed by Signify.

One example of the new program in action will be Signify’s clinical services team having access to Quartet Health’s platform to monitor patients’ mental health care. 

“This year, as we scale to more than 30 states nationwide, we’re excited to partner with Signify Health to help patients in the home quickly and seamlessly access quality mental health care, across conditions and acuity levels,” said Puneet Singh, CEO of Quartet Health, in the statement.

Making post-IPO moves

The announcement of the new partner program comes 11 months to the day after Signify’s IPO last February. At the time, it far outpaced the expected price of around $21 per share to open at $32, giving the company an initial market cap of $7.12 billion. When the IPO was announced, Signify said part of those proceeds were earmarked for acquisition or investment in companies that would complement its offerings. The Signify Health Partner Program looks to be an extension of the larger goal around that sentiment.

The company was founded in December 2017 as a merger between Mountain Capital (recapitalized as CenseoHealth) and Advance Health, in a move that expanded both companies’ footprint in the in-home health evaluation and complex care management spaces.

Gaining Fast Company recognition

A month after its IPO, in March 2021 Signify ranked eighth in the Health Category in Fast Company’s “World’s Most Innovative Companies for 2021” for “its role in helping to transform the healthcare delivery system so that more people can enjoy healthy, happy days at home.”

“This award is an incredible recognition of the people at Signify who are taking on the difficult work of transforming healthcare from a break-fix model to one that is organized around the whole health of a person,” Armbrester said in a statement at the time of the announcement. “In focusing on this mission, we’ve built an engine that helps providers, health plans, employers, social care organizations and other partners reach more people with innovative solutions for some of the most complex problems in healthcare.”

Signify occupies a growing healthcare sector. A McKesson commissioned study found more than 60% of healthcare spending is expected to be connected to quality and value-based care by 2025. The study result reflects a shift in the US healthcare system toward prevention and value-based payment programs.

Quincy Preston contributed to this report.

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