With social determinants of health (SDOH) in the payer arena focusing on \u201cwhole person\u201d care, several payers are embracing innovative approaches to this emerging frontier \u2013 often bringing in more of a human element.<\/p>\n
To address social and economic barriers to better serve vulnerable populations, payers are doing everything from providing housing for the homeless to having local field teams work directly with patients and providers.<\/p>\n
For example, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois is investing $1 million in \u201chousing and wraparound support services for members of Chicago\u2019s homeless community to improve their health and reduce healthcare costs,\u201d according to this recent Forbes <\/em>article.<\/a><\/p>\n This new investment shows how housing is turning into a health insurer strategy to address SDOH. For other major payers, these types of investments have supported other initiatives such as paying rent for Medicaid patients, or partnering with a local health system to investigate the living conditions of health plan enrollees.<\/p>\n \u201cWe know that factors outside the scope of healthcare \u2014 such as lack of access to housing, food and transportation \u2014 play a major role in a person\u2019s ability to be healthy,\u201d said Maurice Smith, President of Health Care Service Corp., the parent company of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Illinois, in the article. \u201cThey may also add to medical costs.\u201d<\/p>\n In other recent payer news, California-based Health2047\u2019s new health plan, Zing Health, will offer a Medicare Advantage plan that addresses SDOH.<\/p>\n According to this recent EHR Intelligence <\/em>article<\/a>, the health plan will establish a local field team that will be acutely aware of the members\u2019 and providers\u2019 environments. These community ambassadors will become familiar with the local resources to assist with understanding and helping local patient populations.<\/p>\n While these human elements will certainly help payers best manage population health, data will always be the foundation for making these programs actionable and effective.<\/p>\n