The nonprofit senior care provider Empath Health is partnering with the Medicare Advantage organization American Health Plans (AHP), a division of American Health Partners, to serve patients who are enrolled in Institutional Special Needs Plans (ISNP).

ISNPs are Medicare Advantage plans that are designed to serve beneficiaries who live in skilled nursing facilities. Through the Empath partnership, members of AHP’s American Health Advantage of Florida ISNP will receive interdisciplinary services from TruHealth of Florida, the clinical arm of the ISNP. TruHealth is a newly established joint venture between AHP and Empath.

Patients will also have access to Empath Health’s “full-life care” model.

“Empath is really putting a full-life care continuum of services and programs together that is very focused on the frail, elderly population,” Empath Health CEO Jonathan Fleece told Hospice News. “As we’ve been developing this model and this expertise, what really piqued our interest about the ISNP program is that this is another value-based reimbursement program that focuses on taking care of the frail elderly and ensuring that they have access to full-life care.”

Empath Health, in its current form, emerged in 2020 from a merger with Stratum Health, where Fleece was previously CEO. The Florida-based organization’s business lines include hospice, home health care, primary care, palliative care, PACE, AIDS and sexual wellness care, veterans’ services and adult day programs, serving more than 23,000 individuals. The organization is the parent company of 20 affiliates and four philanthropic foundations.

Discussions of a potential partnership between Empath and AHP began last year. Around the time that Fleece took the helm as Empath’s CEO in 2023, the organization identified engagement with ISNPs as a strategic objective. Empath conducted a detailed analysis of available ISNP plans in their markets and landed on AHP as their preferred partner at this stage.

The partnership allows AHP to expand its range of services in the Florida market.

“Florida is an important market for us, and Empath has a long tradition of serving residents of Florida. What’s important for us is their long-term thinking and commitment to the market, and they’re standing in the market as a respected provider,” AHP Chief Development Officer Hank Watson, told Hospice News. “In addition, they offer very complementary service lines with their PACE programming, their home health and hospice programming and their geriatric practice.”

Long-term care residents aligned with the program will receive services from a nurse practitioner, a registered nurse, a care manager and a member advocate, which Watson describes as “high-touch concierge medicine at the bedside.”

Those residents will also receive a supplemental benefits package that is designed specifically for nursing home residents rather than patients who reside elsewhere in local communities.

The ISNP program will in time extend throughout the state of Florida, according to Fleece.

“We’re in a good number of markets now where we already have some of our full-life care services. We have deep relationships with a lot of the [skilled nursing facility] providers in communities, and we’ll certainly be bringing the ISNP to those long-standing relationships,” Fleece said. “But also, in areas of the state where we don’t have an Empath footprint, we certainly do plan on creating new relationships.”