Looking to grow its home-based care business platform, which manages home medical equipment orders, payment processing and delivery to patients, Tomorrow Health says it will close the books on its own home medical equipment "to remove barriers and unlock new opportunities" for its network.

WHY IT MATTERS

As healthcare continues to embrace home-based health technologies, such as diagnostic and screening tools, New York-based Tomorrow Heath has been helping its clients navigate the HME purchasing process since 2020.

By partnering with HME suppliers like Apria, AdaptHealth, Home Care Delivered, Lincare, Rotech Healthcare and others, the company says its end-to-end home-based care ecosystem uses technology-driven matching that considers quality, specialization, insurance coverage and geography to pair patients with more than 40,000 medical products and services.

"HME suppliers are a critical lever to shift care to the home, which is often overlooked by payers," said Vijay Kedar, CEO and co-founder of Tomorrow Health in Thursday's announcement.

The company says by sending digital orders with all the necessary documentation to suppliers within the platform – in compliance with payer requirements – it has reduced supplier operating expenses by up to 24%. 

The company also partners with 125 health plans and health systems and claims that at the present time, 87% of its HME orders have enough information for immediate fulfillment. 

Suppliers can also communicate with payers and providers about orders on the platform.

"Tomorrow Health is not only focused on delivering high-quality, innovative technology to suppliers in need of operational efficiencies, but they're also connecting with suppliers to understand what is and isn't working for them," said Tom Ryan, president and CEO of the American Association for Homecare, an advocacy organization for home-care providers and suppliers, in the statement. 

Lowell Price, senior vice president of business development and chief growth officer of Home Care Delivered, added that its partnership with Tomorrow Health enables automation and scaling.

In March, the company also announced a novel tool for Medicaid managed care organizations that enables care coordinators to get real-time order status and coordinate with members' care teams. On Tomorrow Health's digital platform, MCOs can get durable medical equipment information such as referring provider details, product category estimated delivery date, confirmed delivery date and more that they need for reporting purposes, the company said.

THE LARGER TREND

Home-based health technologies – tools like blood pressure cuffs, weight scales, thermometers and other screening tools that can be used to gauge biometric value – are proving their value to healthcare and should be embraced because they can alert patients and their doctors to potential health issues, said Travis Rush, CEO of Reperio, a vendor of at-home biometric screening technologies.

"Home-based health technologies can help organizations empower their workers to engage in preventive care, which can help them to avoid the higher costs of treatment down the line," he told Healthcare IT News in February. 

ON THE RECORD

"Tomorrow Health's technology and unique position with payers enables change end-to-end, supporting everything from prescription to reimbursement while arming suppliers with valuable insights that can drive business growth and ensure positive experiences for every single stakeholder," Kedar said in the statement.

Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.