Deaconess Associations CEO Trey Crabb on caring for an aging population

Chicago - Trey Crabb sees a great deal of opportunity ahead.

Crabb is the chief executive officer of Deaconess Associations Incorporated, a Christian-focused holding company based in Cincinnati that includes home care, hospice personal care, and physical, speech and occupational therapy in senior living communities. He has been CEO for more than two years.

He spoke with Chief Healthcare Executive® at the Fairmont Hotel in Chicago, while he was attending the Becker’s Healthcare 16th Annual Meeting.

During the conversation, Crabb talked about changes in federal policy, dealing with an aging population, new opportunities in delivering services in the home, and the growing use of AI in the healthcare industry.

Crabb talks about the challenges with changes in Medicare reimbursements. “We're price takers in our business, meaning, as the government decides to make modifications to our fee schedule, then we suffer as a result,” Crabb says.

He says the pace of changes in federal policies also pose challenges. He says he’s looking to make sure that his business is relying on more than Medicare payments.

“We need to expand our business and change things and look for non-Medicare reimbursement, and that might be extending the care of the people that we're already seeing, but into their homes,” Crabb says.

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Deaconess is already providing services for patients at home, and Crabb sees more opportunities ahead.

“Sme of the opportunities to expand care at home that I think about are aligned with the businesses that we are already in at Deaconess,” he says. “So we treat seniors in senior living facilities, like assisted living and memory care units. But before they get there, many times they're discharged by a hospital or health system to senior living or to the home or to home health.

“But there's a lot that happens before you get into the system that can be done at home,” Crabb continues. “So it's physical, speech and occupational therapy in the home. It's helping provide home care to people, to help them stay in their homes longer, so to extend their time at home, as opposed to being in an institution. It's remote therapy monitoring. So it's all these things that are done, generally speaking, in a facility today, that I think have the potential to be done at home, and we're pursuing all those avenues.”

The healthcare industry continues to deal with an aging population, with the last of the Baby Boom generation reaching retirement age at the end of the decade.

Crabb says healthcare organizations need to be planning to deal with a growing number of older patients who are going to require more care.

“I think we're reaching a point where the number of people that need care is going to outpace the supply of people that are going to be giving care,” Crabb says. “And so what I would recommend is having hospitals and health systems as leaders in their communities, and companies like us on the post-acute care side, continuing to support the education of clinicians, whether that's allied health professionals or physicians.”

“We're seeing nursing schools go up. We're seeing new medical schools be created. I'm fully behind that, because everybody is predicting a physician and clinician shortage to address those needs,” he says.

Crabb says AI can help healthcare organizations, including reviews of medication histories for clinicians. He also says AI is helping organizations become more efficient.

“Revenue cycle management is an area where AI is already involved,” Crabb says. “It helps us qualify people for insurance. It helps us collect bills, helps us code services that we provide more appropriately. It also helps us summarize hundreds of pages of data that might be in a patient's medical record to help clinicians use their time more efficiently in front of patients, and that includes medication as well.”

As many organizations are looking at a difficult financial landscape, some are weighing whether it’s the right time to pursue strategic opportunities such as expansion, or whether it’s best to hold onto some more cash.

Crabb says it doesn’t necessarily have to be a time to choose between focusing on liquidity or expansion.

“A lot of people ask whether we should be looking to do strategic opportunities or preserving liquidity, assuming that those are the only two options,” Crabb says. “I think if an opportunity makes strategic and financial sense, then it's something that should be looked at, especially if it helps you build out your service continuum, and helps you increase density in places where you are, connects dots on a map if you're disparately located. And so I'd be looking at those things.”

But he adds, “Making sure that you have a certain amount of liquidity helps keep you independent, and it gives you optionality, I would say. So you have to walk that line carefully.”

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(Nicole Jussen interviewed Trey Crabb in Chicago.)