The Case for Hospital-Level Home Care
View from the C-Suite: Anthony Slonim, MD, DrPH, President and CEO at Renown Health
// By Marcia Simon, APR //
Leading the charge toward home care reimbursement parity and population health involves huge challenges. “You have to have a vision, you have to execute the vision, and you have to tell your story,” says Renown Health’s CEO.
The current pandemic is pushing the boundaries for parity when it comes to telemedicine reimbursement. How long will it be before the entire health care system repositions itself to provide hospital-level care for patients at home through ongoing remote monitoring?
Tony Slonim, MD, DrPH, president and CEO, Renown Health
That’s what Tony Slonim has been working toward since he took the helm seven years ago as president and CEO of Renown Health in Reno, Nevada. Slonim, MD, DrPH, is a quadruple board-certified pediatric intensivist with a doctorate in public health, which gives him unique insight into the community health needs he oversees. Renown Health is the only tertiary care center serving the community stretching 100,000 square miles between Sacramento and Salt Lake City with a large rural landscape in between.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, addressing the needs of this community’s patients and families brought many issues surrounding home care to the forefront of Renown’s approach to population health.
Hospital-level home care is part of the population health model Slonim has been building at Renown Health, which is among a small number of health care systems offering their own insurance plans. Renown’s Hometown Health is a local, not-for-profit insurance provider. This, he says, allows the network to tackle community health barriers in a way that the industry standard cannot.
“Our business model is all about population health and wellness. Our doctors are on a salary. They get paid regardless of what the patient goes through,” says Slonim. “How they take home a paycheck is a very different model compared to doctors who get paid for encounter-based care.”