The companies announced Tuesday that behavioral health company Lucet will acquire Emcara Health, a value-based healthcare team dedicated to home care.
The terms of the transaction are not disclosed.
Overland Park, Kansas, works with employers and health programs to provide mental health and addiction support. The company’s nursing services team evaluates members and matches them with the care that best suits their needs. It operates in all 50 states.
Emcara Health, formerly known as Pophealthcare (Guidelines), also works with health programs and provides primary and supportive care and annual health checks to patient homes. It can help patients manage chronic diseases, promote laboratory work and support advanced care programs. It has a nursing team that includes a medical director, senior practitioner provider, registered nurse and community health workers.
As a joint company, Lucet and Emcara will be able to combine mental health support with physical health. This is necessary because many patients with chronic diseases have common mental health conditions.
“If you look at the population during the Medicare chronic consolidation, about 40% of Medicare Advantage members have at least one unresolved behavioral health status,” Shana Hoffman, Lucet’s president and CEO, said in an interview. “Then, if someone has a behavioral health status with pre-compromised comorbidity, health spending increases by 49%. We are indeed looking for ways to attract members who drive health expenses and can hand over behavioral health interventions to them.”
First, the combined company will drive a new integrated care model in its overlapping markets, and will eventually expand to support more patients. This includes assessing behavioral health needs and linking patients during internal and virtual visits.
“Through this acquisition, [Emcara’s] Reliable home care solutions models will be combined with Lucet’s behavioral health expertise to bring new integrated care models to market, which will provide a successful management of members’ complex chronic health conditions in the future. ”
To measure the success of the acquisition, Lucite will track how many EMCARA internally evaluated members to obtain behavioral health services, readmission rates, emergency room visits and total care costs, Hoffman said. The company also follows how many healthy days patients have at home.
Hoffman said that as health care costs remain high, payers will look for providers that provide full service. That's what Lucet hopes to achieve through the acquisition of Emcara.
“We think it’s really nice to start with the behavioral health aspect, Lucset has been established for 30 years and then being able to add these other works to our location, especially when you consider managing these conditions for members across the health and behavioral scope,” she said.
Photo: Mikdam, Getty Images
