Home Health Referral Trends That are Significant for the Industry in 2023 and Beyond

Home Health Care News | By Andrew Donlan

Home health referrals are well above where they were before the pandemic, but not necessarily at the expense of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). 

There are now more patients in need of home health services, and those patients tend to be sicker. At the same time, agencies are struggling to meet demand in a tough recruiting and retention environment. 

Those takeaways and others are according to new data reporting from CarePort. 

Specifically, home health referral volumes have reached 122% of 2019 levels. At the same time, SNFs have reached 104% of their referral volume. That is as of this past October. 

“In relative terms, there just continues to be a gap between home health and SNFs, and I expect that gap to continue to widen, because I think COVID led a change in patient preference in terms of going home,” Lissy Hu, president of connected networks at CarePort, told Home Health Care News. “And the response to that by the health systems and payers – because it’s a higher value setting and a lower cost setting of care – is that payers and providers are putting more technology and systems in place to accommodate those patients who can be in the home.”

CarePort – a part of WellSky – is a care coordination software platform. It helps health systems and hospitals connect with post-acute care providers, such as home health agencies.

While increasing home health referrals are mostly welcomed news for providers in the space, more referrals does not exactly mean more business and more bottom-line revenue. 

As the referral rates have been rising, referral rejection rates have also been climbing. In January, for instance, the home health industry’s rejection rate was 58%, according to CarePort. That was at least 16% higher than pre-pandemic levels. 

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