United Church Homes is preparing to expand its capabilities in serving older adults with dementia, in part through participating in the new GUIDE model program.
United Church Homes was recently approved by CMS to participate in the GUIDE model.
“I think this is the future,” said UCH President and CEO Kenneth Daniel. “We know we can manage people in this program successfully and in such a way that makes their lives better, makes their caregivers’ lives better, and ultimately more efficiently uses government resources to do so.”
UCH has a wide range of service offerings and care coordination for those with dementia, making the organization a seamless fit into the larger GUIDE model, according to Daniel.
For example, the company’s NavaGuide program is an external-facing program to help older adults age in place and support those living with dementia at home and their caregivers. Prior to GUIDE, UCH also established a partnership with Miami University of Ohio for an art program allowing those with cognitive decline to get creative and handcraft works of art, along with offering dementia care across its assisted living and skilled nursing units.
“The way we understand it, we want to take that expertise of service coordination to a population of people who are living with early-stage memory loss, with the goal of bringing quality of life and addressing the social determinants of health,” Daniel told Memory Care Business.
This includes ramping up physician services, transportation, nutrition management, and socialization to help older adults age in place at home and prevent premature hospitalizations or nursing care placement, Daniel added.
‘Growth opportunity’ for UCH
The GUIDE model, introduced in 2023, is designed to incentivize companies to better assist individuals with dementia in living in their homes, a definition that includes senior living. The model is meant to support unpaid caregivers with an around-the-clock support hotline and training resources. . GUIDE also introduces a new payment system for participating providers to improve patient care coordination. To date, over 400 healthcare organizations are participating in dementia care programs.
The GUIDE model focuses on residents still on traditional Medicare plans, and UCH has partnered with a team of primary care physicians to support UCH’s GUIDE rollout in assisting families and caregivers regarding various aspects of aging in place with dementia, along with caregiver support.
To prepare for the influx of new residents receiving services, Daniel said UCH createdcrafted a new data model to track health data points to measure residents’ conditions and their overall progress over time.
The GUIDE model aligns well with UCH’s middle-market efforts, which includes providing housing for older adults that meet certain federal income requirements in 13 states.
“We see it as a growth opportunity,” Daniel said.
Looking down the road, he envisions a landscape in which UCH services can assist older adults in a variety of scenarios. For example, if a resident lives away from their support network, that could be supplemented through support for the NavaGuide home health program.
By combining services available to Medicaid-eligible residents, Daniel envisions future cost savings and the ability to meet a “wider set of people” while allowing UCH to scale up its dementia-focused programming and care.
“Now we have the support, the recognition, and some additional resources to serve more people and apply this knowledge to making their lives better,” Daniel said.
Over the next six months, UCH will coordinate with CMS to receive referrals of eligible older adults that will be assigned care supported by GUIDE and administered by UCH.
“We expect by January, if not before, to be fully operational and highly engaged with more of the people who are assigned to us through the program,” Daniel added. “By the end of next year, we’ll have a ton of measurable data to learn from and put forth the benefits that this program is intended to provide.”
Memory care operators will be eligible for two types of payments when partnering with CMS for the GUIDE rollout, including an infrastructure payment by July 2025, funded by Medicare Part B services.
“Having physician-supervised, post-chronic memory support integrates the clinical with practical and social goals so that we get paid for providing that,” Daniel said. “CMS is recognizing that at least for this population, chronic care management is a coming trend in senior care.”
With new payment models, Daniel sees a world in which senior living providers are able to “diversify revenue” while making a positive impact on the lives of those living with cognitive decline.
