Blog Archives - tango.

Q+A with Wendy Coyle, tango’s Chief People Officer

February 2024 marks Wendy Coyle's two-year anniversary as tango's Chief People Officer. In a recent interview, we had the opportunity to explore Wendy's impactful contributions over the past two years, particularly in the realm of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and her enthusiasm for shaping a robust company culture.

Tell us about your role at tango!
Wendy: I lead the strategic function of human capital and the employee experience to meet the needs of the business, overseeing our Human Resources and talent functions. This encompasses a spectrum from hiring, onboarding, employee relations, management, rewards, retention, and development, to culture, compliance, diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts. Additionally, I manage benefits, payroll, and compensation.

What led you to join tango?
Wendy: I did not start my career in this space but I have a passion for healthcare since my mom was a nurse. I knew I wanted to help people just like her but I was not interested in needles, ha! Therefore, when I moved to Arizona, my first role was with a health plan, which eventually led me to tango. Even though I am not patient facing, I am part of the journey in patient care. When I met our CEO and COO, I knew this was where I wanted to be. I love having the opportunity to ensure our teams are connected to our overall mission.

What initiatives at tango are you especially proud of?
Wendy: I am proud of the teams that I have built and the success in our employee engagement, diversity and culture. tango was featured in Vistria’s 2023 Annual Impact Report for our efforts in DEI with our respect to recruitment. The HR team also started “Coffee Chats” this year, and our first conversation was centered around Black History Month. We can’t wait to have more!
We established our Culture Committee in 2022, which is comprised of dedicated individuals who are passionate about fostering an inclusive workplace. We work together to organize monthly events and initiatives. We’ve done everything from an online Secret Santa exchange to creating chat channels to discuss various topics such as Chinese New Year, Valentine's Day, Presidents Day, St. Patrick's Day, and more. The aim is to create a fun, engaging, and entertaining environment where everyone feels valued, heard, and included.

How have you kept a strong company culture with most of the team being remote?
Wendy: Even though the majority of our company works across the country, from the west coast to the east coast and in 26 states, we feel like a family. We are very intentional with getting together regularly in person to foster connection and collaboration. Our executive and senior leadership teams meet in person quarterly, and we love having teams visit our tango headquarters in Phoenix, AZ. When together, we always make sure to enjoy time with each other by doing team building events. It keeps us connected!
We also initiated “tango talks” in the middle of 2023 to improve company culture since we are 95% remote. The purpose of these talks is to get everyone to learn more about their leadership teams. Our CEO, Brian, attends every discussion. We have received great reviews from employees who attend. Everyone seems to value the quality, personal time with our CEO and leadership team, as well as getting to connect with team members they don’t interact with as frequently.

What are you most excited about when it comes to tango in 2024?
Wendy: I am excited to be a part of our continued growth and what we are becoming!

Gaps in Home Care: Identifying challenges and tango’s solutions

When providing value-based, high-quality, and timely post-acute care solutions in the home, healthcare providers and networks have historically left patients unsatisfied and still in need. Whether it’s the patient experience or foundational service delivery obstacles, there persists a stigma surrounding the reliability of care in the home.

At tango, we empower the home as the site of care in everything we do. While acknowledging the stigma and sometimes a patient’s lack of trust when it comes to receiving post-acute care at home, our Chief Growth Officer, Julie Smith, notes a few of the key challenges currently hindering the expansion of Home Care across the greater health care industry, while also reiterating tango’s place as a critical and unique solution.

Access to Care

Ensuring a patient has access to home care is a fundamental challenge to providing services. Amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States is facing a shortage of registered nurses (RNs), which directly impacts a home health provider’s reliability of consistent service delivery. On top of that, McKinsey & Company recently reported that 31% of RNs were surveyed as likely to leave direct patient care positions in the next year. While tango does not directly hire patient providers such as nurses, our model encompasses a full network at each client’s disposal, efficiently connecting them with the highest-quality local and national partners.

Another challenge when it comes to accessibility of home care are the disparities in coverage and payment rates across health plans. It can be difficult for a health plan to select the “right” agency for a patient, which often creates an administrative burden. At tango, we have exclusively worked on delivering home care for over 20 years. Our tenure in clinical utilization management (UM), claims processing, paying providers directly, networking and monitoring, and more allows us to reduce fraud and waste within the administrative system while actively creating savings for members.

Quality of Care

Not all home care is provided equally. Across agencies, ensuring that a patient successfully receives home care services can mean vastly different definitions and practices. For some, it may mean providing services as quickly as possible and for others, it could be reducing the likelihood of readmittance to an acute setting. An all-encompassing model of value-based care solutions is where tango comes in. Continuously tracking the outcomes of our home care providers and using that data to learn where the gaps exist allows us to be consistent in our home care model. Additionally, after every service, we measure performance and use specific data to track every interaction with a patient. Through these thorough procedures of care, it is certainly no surprise that tango has a 98%-member satisfaction rate compared to the national average of 72%.

Timely Service Delivery

Timely initiation of care is one of the most important aspects of the care process and is directly tied to quality of care. Time is a clinical standard from the CMS, making it crucial for home health care services to swiftly provide patient care, guarantee improved post-acute care and reduce readmittance and hospitalization. At tango, we have many internal standards for timely service delivery. If our contracted agencies and partners are unable to respond to service requests according to our timeline, we adapt quickly and find another provider to guarantee a patient is taken care of as soon as possible.

While the home care landscape continues to evolve, Julie reiterates that it is our motto at tango, “enabling quality care”, that continues to be at the core of our service delivery. This mission remains true as we continue to develop innovative and unique solutions to mitigate challenges and obstacles to providing accessible, high-quality, and timely home health care services. We look forward to sharing new post-acute care products and partnerships in 2024.

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Q+A with Brian Lobley

October 2023 marks one year since Brian Lobley joined tango as our Chief Executive Officer. We sat down with Brian to reflect on his background in healthcare, his first year at tango and how he envisions the future of home care.

While this may be your first anniversary at tango, you spent almost 20 years working on the payor side of healthcare. How has the transition to tango changed your understanding of what value-based care means from a different part of the healthcare ecosystem?

Brian:In my nearly two decades working within the payor side of healthcare, I developed a deep appreciation for the intricate dynamics of value-based care and aligning stakeholder needs. I have been very fortunate to be involved in some very innovative value-based care models in Philadelphia, and the results we produced to enable better outcomes for members at a lower cost were meaningful, and in my opinion, critical to how we are all working to change the way US healthcare is delivered.
This experience has been invaluable in shaping my understanding of the work that tango is leading today. My transition to tango, which is leading the industry in driving value-based care arrangements across the post-acute continuum, has underscored the multi-faceted nature of value-based care and the importance of collaborative partnerships and alignment.
Today post-acute care, in particular, the home, is not fully enabled as a site of care for people, especially our Seniors in Medicare Advantage plans. The landscape is fragmented, there are many competing sites of service, and while the home is very often the patient’s preferred place to recover, it may not always be utilized, even when it’s a possibility. That’s where tango steps in - our mission is to enable quality care at home across the post-acute continuum.

Reflecting on this past year, what has been the most exciting moment or accomplishment with tango? What challenges do you anticipate as you look to next year?

Brian: I think our re-brand really encapsulates many of our key accomplishments this year as we pivot from being a company that was primarily focused on Home Health care to one that is able to drive and coordinate care across the post-acute continuum with a focus on enabling the home as a primary destination (when it makes clinical sense for the patient).
There are significant challenges in our industry. Home health agencies are facing tremendous labor pressure and there are not enough nurses and other care staff to meet the need. Care is also not being optimized for carriers serving Medicare Advantage members, where as much as 60% of home health referrals are going unstaffed. This means that patients discharged from the acute setting are not getting the critical care they need when they go home, which can lead to suboptimal outcomes such as unnecessary rehospitalization and emergency room visits.
This is why the tango model is so critical. Not only are we working hard to increase access for our members by being a preferred partner to home health agency providers, but our model focuses on working with patients while they are still in the hospital to get them placed with one of our high-quality providers. This ensures timely start of care and that care coordination services are provided during the recovery period to drive the best outcomes for our payors and their members.
We understand the challenges in our industry are multi-faceted, ranging from regulatory shifts to staffing shortages and increasing demand for home health services. Our distinctiveness lies in our agility and ability to adapt swiftly and work with all key stakeholders (payors, providers, patients) to refine solutions needed to respond to the evolving landscape. Our strength lies in our ability to transform obstacles into opportunities, and we are confident that tango can be a leader in changing the way post-acute and home care is enabled in this country. I’m also really proud of our team and their unyielding focus in helping to position tango to address the unique challenges that are facing the home health care industry.

What does the company name, tango, mean to you?

Brian: Just like in healthcare, the tango is an intricate dance that requires collaboration to be not just successful, but to produce beautiful “outcomes”. The dance’s beauty emerges as two partners connect, conveying emotion and connectedness through their deep attunement to one another. The ‘tango’, like healthcare, encapsulates the essence of how these dancers are working together - communication, adaptability, creativity, innovation, practice, mastery, leadership, and performance.
When seeking a brand to encapsulate this synergy, tango emerged as the fitting choice. Just as the dance requires two partners, our work in the post-acute care ecosystem relies on collaboration between us, payer partners, and providers to ensure patients access high-quality, cost-effective care. tango symbolizes this partnership, reflecting our commitment to working harmoniously to enable better care for patients within this healthcare landscape.

Looking to the future of home care, how you would like to see tango, as well as the home health care industry, innovate?

Brian: tango wants to ensure care the home can be accessible and available for members. Growth in the popularity of care at home is only going to increase as more and more “provider” services move into the home. We need to make sure the supply can meet the demand, the home is optimized as a site of care, and that the value generated from providing care at home is appropriately shared with the providers who are helping us drive better care for our patients.

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CMS FINAL RULE 4201-F: What to Know

At tango, we know that high-quality home health care services are essential to ensuring optimized post-acute outcomes. In an ever-evolving industry such as healthcare, there are many challenges and changes that companies across the healthcare continuum face in order to ensure everyone can receive access to consistent, timely, and elevated quality of care. These include rate cuts, access issues, and regulatory changes from the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

This past April, CMS issued Final Rule 4201-F that went into effect as early as June and will continue to have various effective dates for contract years 2024 through 2027. While changes and additional amendments to regulations are not uncommon, these adaptations are important to note within the home health care space and industry at large. Since these CMS policies are aimed at ensuring that beneficiaries have consistent and timely access to medically necessary care, it is important to understand a broader scope of impact across the health care network.

Here, we breakdown 4 of CMS’ recent adjustments in their efforts to increase oversight of Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to further align with traditional Medicare coverage and what that means across the health care service provider network as they begin to take shape into 2024.

Ensuring Timely Access to Care

The Final Rule outlines requirements for utilization management (UM) regarding patient coverage and the practice of prior authorization. New guidelines ensure people with MA plans receive access to the same medically necessary care they would receive in Traditional Medicare. Prior authorization policies are used to confirm presence of diagnosis and to ensure a service is medically necessary. If a beneficiary is undergoing an active course of treatment and switches from traditional Medicare to an MA plan or switches to a new MA plan, the plan will provide a minimum of a 90-day transition period to avoid disruption in care. Such changes will strive to ensure that consistent care is accessible to patients no matter the status of their MA plans.

Protecting Beneficiaries

New measures to protect beneficiaries include the establishment of a Utilization Management Committee to review policies on an annual basis and ensure consistency with Traditional Medicare’s NCDs, LCDs, and guidelines. Aside from UM practices, another protection measure will include countermeasures for misleading marketing practices targeting patients. Moreover, these changes are in-line with efforts to increase transparency and the understanding beneficiaries have relating to their plans and coverage. Notification requirements to beneficiaries means that if a contracted participating provider contract is termed, a good faith effort of at least 30 days’ notice before effective term date is done for the members seen on a regular basis by the terming provider.

Advancing Health Equity

In order to advance best practices concerning health care, the Final Rule will soon begin to require Medicare Advantage organizations to include more substantial cultural and linguistic capabilities within their service directories. Cultural competence on behalf of health care providers is increasingly important to guaranteeing all patients accessibility to the highest quality of care. Reducing health disparities to MA enrollees will actively work to increase communication across health care and further guarantee standardization of care practices.

Improving Access to Behavioral Health

Another aspect of this Final Rule is increasing MA organizational responsibilities to provide adequate behavioral health services within network. While there are many specific new requirements, one to note will require MA organizations to establish programs of care coordination involving community, social, and behavioral health services to mirror levels of accessibility similar to acute care for all enrollees.

New additions and changes to CMS regulations are top of mind for many stakeholders within the home health care industry. At tango, our Chief Compliance Officer, Kimberly Templeton-Garcia B.S.N., CRNI, CHC , has been following the 2023 Medicare Advantage CMS 4201-F changes closely. Kim acknowledged the commitment to evaluating these changes across industry stakeholders, and regarding the Final Rule, that “at tango, we are working with our health plan and provider partners closely to monitor the full impact”.

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Q+A with Jay Benn, tango’s Chief Operating Officer

Celebrating his anniversary at tango, Jay sat down with us to reflect and discuss tango's success with his leadership.

In the past 3 years with tango, what aspects of the business have kept you engaged and driving success?

Jay:Since joining the tango team, we have been actively focused on several overarching priorities. The first has been developing the strategic relationships with our key provider partners who are the linchpin to providing access and driving quality outcomes for our patients receiving care at home.

Second, we have diligently worked in recent years to innovate our clinical capabilities, become easier to do business with, and expand operational efficiencies so that tango is well positioned to support the significant growth we are experiencing today.

Finally, we continue to advance in building and nurturing a talented and high performing team at tango. While continuing to commit to these aspects of our business, I am especially proud that tango has remained steadfast in keeping at-home patient care at the center of everything it does.

What about tango sets you apart from others when it comes to Home Health Care benefit management?

Jay: tango’s focus on enabling our home health agency partners to provide high quality, cost-effective care for patients through innovative, value-based models really sets it apart from the rest of the industry. We know that the home is often the most efficient and preferred care setting for seniors, but access and transition support can be barriers to allowing seniors to receive care and comfort in their own home. tango’s efforts to drive payment innovation and build high quality home health care networks ensures patients can recover in their own home, and our care coordination program helps manage transitions, improving key outcomes such as admission and re-admission rates, and reducing total cost of care for payors.

What are you most looking forward to with tango and the future of the home care?

Jay: tango and its collaboration with key stakeholders provide a great platform to deliver care much more meaningfully at home. tango is an innovator and leader in driving the enablement of home care for seniors, and I am really looking forward to the role that tango can play in aligning payment incentives with outcomes so that we can change the way our partners are managing their Medicare Advantage business and make the home a safer, more efficient, and high value setting for patients to receive care.

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Blog: Q+A with Lisa Fisher, tango’s SVP of Operations and Innovation

August marks Lisa Fisher's three year anniversary with tango. We sat down with her to reflect on how she and tango have evolved over the last three years.

What encouraged you to join tango?

Lisa: Too many of us have had those stories, the ones where healthcare goes wrong, and we say to ourselves, "no one else should have to experience what I just went through". I had one of those stories. Even as an employee of a health plan at the time, it was challenging and confusing. When I learned about tango, I said to myself, "if only I had tango at the time, they would have solved our issue". tango has a strong history of helping patients recover in the home, and I knew I wanted to be a part of that solution - bringing better care to the home.

How has tango evolved since you first joined?

Lisa: When I joined tango we were a single-state company; since then we’ve scaled to several other states and are ready to grow again. COVID-19 really changed the trajectory of illness recovery from being hospital and SNF-centric to home-centric. Seniors and patients are wanting to stay in the home, and we’re well positioned to enable that.

tango has also made significant investments in its processes and technology to ensure patients receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time. These enhancements deliver quicker starts of care, reduced hospital (re-)admissions, and more satisfied patients. Our platforms allow us to scale quickly with satisfied customers.

How has your role changed since you first joined?

Lisa: When I joined tango three years ago, as the VP of Sales, we were a small company with a lot of opportunity. Through my diverse background in strategy and process improvement I was able to fill in some of the gaps we had at the time. While my role in sales was great, I found my passion on the ops side. It allows me to use my analytics, strategy, and process improvement. Not only has my role evolved in the last three years, but I’ve evolved as a person and leader. I now lead an amazing team that is filled with dedicated individuals that show up each and every day ready to solve problems and support the members we serve. I’m grateful for the opportunities tango has given me personally and professionally.

What currently excites you at tango?

Lisa: I’m excited to bring our success to other markets. Being able to save even one patient from having the same experience I had is success. There’s no shortage of opportunity and I thrive on fast moving environments like tango.

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Professional Health Care Network Unveils New Name, Brand & CEO

Today, Professional Health Care Network (PHCN) unveiled its new brand strategy via a new name – tango. The change comes after one of the nation’s leading in-home enablement companies expands its strategic partnerships, platform capabilities and leadership team to enhance access and value for patients receiving care at home.

April 12, 2023 – Phoenix, AZ
Today, Professional Health Care Network (PHCN) unveiled its new brand strategy via a new name – tango . The change comes after one of the nation’s leading in - home enablement companies expands its strategic partnerships, platform capabilities and leadership team to enhance access and value for patients receiving care at home.

The rebranding initiative follows a robust strategic development process that began in March 2022 with The Vistria Group’s majority investment in the company and was bolstered with the installation of healthcare veteran Brian Lobley as the new tango CEO in October 2022. Before joining tango, Mr. Lobley was the EVP, Chief Operating Officer & President of Health Markets for Independence Blue Cross in Philadelphia, PA.

Over the past year, tango has continued to accelerate growth by entering several new geographies and strategic relationships and enhancing its care enablement capabilities and capacity through significant investments in product innovation and delivery. Going forward, tango’s differentiated approach to enabling payor and provider care at home strategies uniquely positions the brand as a trusted partner to accelerate and amplify the access and value of in - home care delivery nationwide.

“The innovative platform of tango helps ensure the delivery of timely, high - quality, compassionate in - home ca re that every patient deserves. Our investment in PHCN, now tango, furthers our commitment to enhancing the access and value of in - home care as well as leading stakeholders committed to that goal,” said David Schuppan, Senior
Partner and Co - Head of Healthc are at The Vistria Group.

“Through this rebranding initiative, we are emphasizing our role in enabling our partners to provide high quality, cost - effective care for patients through innovative value - based models,” CEO Brian Lobley said. “tango is workin g with the leading providers and payors across the healthcare industry to elevate the importance and value of the care - at - home space. The solutions we provide enable an accelerated shift to in - home care delivery via a value- based care model that closely al igns payors and providers within a structured, highly collaborative relationship focused on the same set of objectives. We needed a bold name with personality and one that would illustrate our unique dedication to enabling these collaborative, trusted part nerships at a national scale. What word better conveys that commitment than the name of the iconic partner dance, tango?”

About tango (f/k/a PHCN)

Tango, based in Phoenix, AZ, is a leader in home - based clinical care management services, empowering patients to remain in their homes as they receive quality healthcare. tango provides the value - based care enablement platform for payers, risk - bearing entities and providers to more collaboratively serve Medicare Advantage, Managed Medicaid, and Dual - eligible populations. The result is higher quality care, improved access, better patient outcomes, reduced total cost, enhanced Star performance and administrative simplification. For more information about tango, please visit tangocare.com.

About The Vistria Group

The Vistria Group is building a new kind of private investment firm that seeks to deliver both financial returns and societal impact. It invests in essential industries like healthcare, knowledge and learning and financial services that deliver value for investors as well as communities, employees, and consumers. The Vistria Group works as a true partner with its portfolio companies, drawing on its deep sector knowledge, operational expertise, unique network, diverse team, and impact orientation to achieve transformational growth. With over $10 billion in AUM, The Vistria Group believes it has delivered attractive returns for its investors while achieving positive outcomes for its portfolio companies, and the lives and livelihoods it supports. For more infor mation, please visit www.vistria.com .

Vistria Group-Backed Care Management Company Sets Out To Be ‘Anti-Convener’

PHCN will now be called “tango.” The rebranding has been in the works for a year, ever since the Chicago-based private equity firm Vistria Group acquired a majority stake in the company.

“We are emphasizing our role in enabling our partners to provide high quality, cost-effective care for patients through innovative, value-based models,” tango CEO Brian Lobley told Home Health Care News. “We know that the home setting is the preferred care setting where seniors want to be. We thought a rebrand gave us an opportunity to really light the match on what we’re doing that coincides with the growth we’re having with some existing customers and with some new customers.”

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Humana and PHCN Partner on Home Health Services

Update on Humana Home Health Network Services

Humana has contracted with Professional Health Care Network (PHCN) for home health network management services, effective July 1, 2021 for the following Medicare Advantage (MA) networks:

Arizona – expanding statewide to include preferred provider organization (PPO) members, (existing coverage includes health maintenance organization (HMO) members).
Colorado – implementing statewide agreement for MA health maintenance organization (HMO) and MA preferred provider organization (PPO) members
New Mexico – implementing statewide agreement for MA health maintenance organization (HMO) and MA preferred provider organization (PPO) members

This network change requires all home health services to be referred to PHCN to manage, as of July 1, 2021. The program is consistent with industry-wide efforts to ensure clinically appropriate quality of care and to manage the increasing utilization of home health services. While PHCN is responsible for managing service coverage, credentialing and claims adjudication of the home health provider network through contractual relationships with home health agencies in Arizona, Colorado and New Mexico, Humana oversees PHCN through delegation to ensure quality services to its members.

Key Provisions:

Effective July 1, 2021, the PHCN begins management of all home health referrals for MA HMO and PPO members
Ordering healthcare providers should contact PHCN to refer members for home health services
Case managers and concurrent review will to contact PHCN for care plan coordination
Potential providers requesting home health network participation need to contact PHCN for consideration – see additional information section for contact information
Providers with credentialing and claims questions should contact PHCN for dates of service on or after July 1, 2021
Healthcare provider disputes and member grievances and appeals will continue to be managed by Humana

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Q+A with Wendy Coyle, tango’s Chief People Officer

Gaps in Home Care: Identifying challenges and tango’s solutions

Access to Care

Quality of Care

Timely Service Delivery

Blog:

Q+A with Brian Lobley

tango’s Chief Executive Officer

October 2023 marks one year since Brian Lobley joined tango as our Chief Executive Officer. We sat down with Brian to reflect on his background in healthcare, his first year at tango and how he envisions the future of home care.

While this may be your first anniversary at tango, you spent almost 20 years working on the payor side of healthcare. How has the transition to tango changed your understanding of what value-based care means from a different part of the healthcare ecosystem?

Reflecting on this past year, what has been the most exciting moment or accomplishment with tango? What challenges do you anticipate as you look to next year?

What does the company name, tango, mean to you?

Looking to the future of home care, how you would like to see tango, as well as the home health care industry, innovate?

Blog:

CMS FINAL RULE 4201-F: What to Know

Ensuring Timely Access to Care

Protecting Beneficiaries

Advancing Health Equity

Improving Access to Behavioral Health

Blog:

Q+A with Jay Benn

tango's Chief Operating Officer

Celebrating his anniversary at tango, Jay sat down with us to reflect and discuss tango's success with his leadership.

In the past 3 years with tango, what aspects of the business have kept you engaged and driving success?

What about tango sets you apart from others when it comes to Home Health Care benefit management?

What are you most looking forward to with tango and the future of the home care?

Blog:

Q+A with Lisa Fisher

tango’s SVP of Operations and Innovation

"tango has made significant investments in its processes and technology to ensure patients receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time."

August marks Lisa Fisher's three year anniversary with tango. We sat down with her to reflect on how she and tango have evolved over the last three years.

What encouraged you to join tango?

How has tango evolved since you first joined?

How has your role changed since you first joined?

What currently excites you at tango?

Professional Health Care Network Unveils New Name, Brand & CEO

Company enters next phase focused on strategic partnerships, national expansion

About tango (f/k/a PHCN)

About The Vistria Group

Vistria Group-Backed Care Management Company Sets Out To Be ‘Anti-Convener’

The Phoenix-based Professional Health Care Network (PHCN), a home health care management services company, is rebranding.

Humana and PHCN Partner on Home Health Services

Humana has contracted with Professional Health Care Network (PHCN) for home health network management services, effective July 1, 2021 for the following Medicare Advantage (MA) networks.

Update on Humana Home Health Network Services

Key Provisions:

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