April 4, 2024
In this episode of the Profiles in Risk podcast, CEO of The Helper Bees Char Hu, Ph.D., sits down with Tony Canas of Insurance Nerds to discuss the future of aging in America.
Char began his journey in long-term care by founding several of his own dementia care communities. While these facilities have fantastic support for the aging experience of their residents, one thing was made clear to him. Although happy with the facility, residents often said they “wished they’d never met him.” Char began to explore the underlying issues within the long-term care industry with a deep understanding of this sentiment.
PATIENT’S DESIRES
There are many issues within the health insurance industry, but the pandemic highlighted Long-Term Care, Medicare Advantage, and Medicaid, the top payers of home-based care. It is of the utmost importance to accurately assess and resolve the issues present within the aging experience. To do this, we need to be successful in honoring their number one request, aging independently and safely in their homes. However, this is not an easy feat.
COSTS
The average cost of assisted living is around $60,000-$75,000 per year, not including medical expenses. Furthermore, true long-term care is not covered by medicare, making this type of round-the-clock care unattainable for the average middle-class American. Aging at home comes at an even higher price point with an average cost of $12,000 per month or $144,000 per year.
Current costs and methods of delivering home-based care make it almost impossible for the average American to age in place. Worse, the services that are available will not be able to support the influx of demand. With this in mind, Char founded The Helper Bees and set out to create a new model for in-home care. Our offerings marry innovation and data with products and services that transform the aging-in-place journey in a scalable and affordable way.
SOLUTIONS
With a focus on data analytics, The Helper Bees products bring essential information from throughout the policyholder journey into a single platform. The convergence of this data allows our partners to provide the proper care at the right time while identifying outliers and delivering targeted programs and interventions—a win-win for the care recipient receiving this improved care.
Payers must prepare now, as a large population of older adults are on the brink of requiring a long-term care plan. The Helper Bees has deployed many industry-first solutions that ease the strain on payers while providing support and care to individuals and their families. By assessing the payers’ unique needs, The Helper Bees provides a digital, scalable, and affordable solution to transform and improve aging in place.