Humana Execs Toy with Kindred

Strange Tony.

Humana hosted its Q1 earnings call last week.  Humana President Bruce Broussard did not mention Kindred at Home directly in his opening remarks but CFO Brian Kane did.

Healthcare Services is performing in line with expectations, and our adjusted EBITDA guidance remains unchanged for the full year at $1 billion to $1.05 billion. Our home business, including both Kindred at Home and Humana At Home, is outperforming our initial expectations primarily reflecting higher-than-anticipated volume and increased deal synergies relative to expectations.

My hospice coworkers helped deliver those higher than expected volumes and we directly bore the brunt of increased deal synergies with the loss of experienced staff.

As it relates to Healthcare Services, we are seeing really nice performance in our Kindred business, in our Humana At Home businesses. Homecare Homebase is being implemented. That's going well. We're committed to getting on Homecare Homebase. That's one of the investments, as you point out, that we made this year. We think that will create a better clinical model ultimately for us as we continue to integrate with Humana. 

Homecare Homebase has made delivering higher volumes problematic with its overly complex, home health oriented clinical side.  It's business operations side made it difficult for employees to be paid for the full amount of time they work and miles they drive.  

Kindred at Home Hospice President Larry Graham told employees they rolled out Homecare Homebase "to enhance the work-life balance of clinical staff and lead the industry in compliance and clinical excellence."

Enhanced work-life balance means staff are free to document from home and not be paid for it.  The only place for nurses to document continued hospice eligibility is in the narrative.  Some nurses added a qualifier to address Homecare Homebase's garbage in-garbage out clinical rabbit trails.

Humana made $39 million in Q1 from its complex holdings in Kindred at Home.  My hospice coworkers received nothing from executives for their efforts.  President David Causby has long advocated not giving employees raises and turning a tin ear to their voices.

Hospice President Larry Graham knows his customer is Humana and its financial rapscallion partners.  Since its founding Curo has been owned by financial rapscallions.

Here's how Causby and Graham have impacted a key work-life measure, whether an employee would recommend their employer to a friend.  Less than half of Kindred/Curo employees would recommend a friend work for the company.  That's a stinging management rebuke.

Humana President Bruce Broussard did address Kindred with one Wall Street analyst.  

We have invested in Kindred based on a reimbursement change that would have some impact on lowering the impact from a therapy. But in addition, we see a great opportunity in being able to assist us in what our core business, and that is really driving down the cost of care through preventing hospital admissions.

Kindred at Home is a toy for Humana executives and Kindred at Home's abysmal duo, David Causby and Larry Graham.  As a result my hospice co-workers have much to bear.

Anonymous