This article was originally published June 13, 2023 on Vator News.
According to McKinsey, 25% of healthcare dollars will be shifted to the home by 2025; this was a trend that was already happening before COVID, and has now been accelerated.
Luna is one of the fastest growing companies in this space, providing of in-home physical services, with a network of local physical therapists who provide the type of care administered in a traditional outpatient clinic, but from the comfort of a patient’s home.
The company has been expanding recently through partnerships with AARP, Providence, Emory Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, and Scripps Health and, on Tuesday it announced its latest partnership, this time with MedStar Health, the largest healthcare system in Maryland and the Washington, D.C., region, to expand the availability of care in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Northern Virginia.
While patients were able to receive care in these areas prior to MedStar, this is Luna's first hospital partnership in these areas.
"MedStar learned about Luna from one of Luna’s other hospital partnerships, and was very intrigued by the model, and wanted to learn more. About a year later, we now have the formal partnership in place," Palak Shah, co-founder and head of clinical services at Luna, told VatorNews.
"Luna is bringing on a partnership with a new hospital every single month right now. Hospitals are really excited about partnering with Luna."
Luna's platform matches eligible patients to therapists based on factors such as specialty, geography, and schedules. Luna's network of local physical therapists then provides care from the comfort of a patient's home. The same therapist treats the patient for the entirety of the treatment plan; between visits, patients can use Luna to communicate with their physical therapists, set appointment times, and perform therapist prescribed and monitored exercises.
The company currently operates across 48 markets in 27 states and has treated almost 40,000 patients in their homes, and the company has seen 6,183% growth in visits since it was founded in 2018.
What Luna is providing for MedStar that they didn't have before is enabling an “outpatient PT at home” model for their system and their patients, which will be called MedStar Health Physical Therapy at Home, Shah explained.
"For MedStar, this is an accretive service line that expands their care capacity, geographic reach, and overall access. For MedStar patients, they get the convenience and safety of delivered outpatient care to the home, at no additional cost – in fact, they can pay the same co-pay as facility-based care but receive in-person care at home on their schedule," he said.
"They leverage the Luna platform to enable high quality, outpatient care to the home, in lieu of consuming facility-based care. Facilities are important to MedStar, but also expanding care across all parts of their geographic area by enabling at-home delivered care enables them to serve even more patients."
