Social care is a complex and rapidly changing landscape. Many people across the US have unmanaged medical conditions, face challenging social and personal barriers, and have fallen through the cracks despite the massive investments that healthcare organizations and government agencies have made in people, technology, and outreach. 

The Cost of Falling Through the Cracks

• + 59% total cost of care
• + 79% inpatient hospital admissions
• + 100% emergency department visits

Source: 2022 Impact Report

People with the most challenging social and healthcare needs usually reach out to the organizations and community groups they trust the most. Being able to request support in a secure, reliable, and efficient way makes sure those individuals can access the services and support they need, no matter which door they open.

The Power of an Assistance Request Form

That’s where Unite Us comes in. We partner with provider, health plan, government, and nonprofit organizations across the nation to launch Assistance Request Forms (ARF) that help individuals get connected to social care. 

How It Works

An Assistance Request Form is a public-facing form that enables people to quickly request the services they need, such as food support, housing, or employment assistance. In the form, they can securely share their own or a family member’s basic contact information in addition to the type of need, a short description of the need,  and their consent for this information to be shared with a secure network of providers who can help. The ARF is available in 35 languages to ensure that people can get connected to the care they need as seamlessly as possible.  

After the ARF is submitted, there are two options for what happens next: 

1. Direct response from community-based organizations (CBOs) – If CBOs on the Unite Us Platform have opted to directly respond to ARFs, then the submission will be sent to a recipient organization’s dashboard. At the receiving organization, the relevant users will be notified of the inbound requests for services, and they can reach out to the person directly to provide support.
2. Support from Unite Us Care Coordination Team – Another option that organizations can take is to loop in the Unite Us Care Coordination team. The Unite Us Care Coordination team serves as social care coordinators by identifying and executing appropriate client referrals, taking the onus off of in-house organization administrators. The Care Coordination team will reach out to the person who submitted the ARF form to gather more information as needed, and send a referral through the Unite Us Platform to a local organization that can help. 

Ultimately, in both scenarios, the person who submitted the ARF is seamlessly and securely connected to the care they need. 

Get Started 

Interested in learning more about how Assistance Request Forms can further your SDoH strategy? Request a demo to get started today. 

Request a demo

The post The Power of Assistance Request Forms in Connecting People to Social Care appeared first on uniteus.com.

Unite Us experts and industry partner, Media Logic, unveil exclusive research findings on 2024 Annual Enrollment Period (AEP) results and impactful customer lessons for your growth and retention strategies ahead.
2023 provided another challenging landscape for AEP with economic uncertainty, international turmoil, shifting consumer attitudes, and slowed MA growth – all leading up to an impending election year ahead. These factors highlight the importance of the art and science of a granular understanding of market dynamics, competitor strategies, and opportunities for growth when developing a holistic marketing approach to attract and retain members in a competitive market.

Unite Us Insights Growth product has enabled our customers to outperform the industry average in 2024 AEP for the sixth straight year. Together with Media Logic, this webinar will help health plans quickly understand key trends from AEP results and develop more clarity around market dynamics to drive future decisions on product design, business development, and marketing and engagement strategies.

You will learn about:

• Competitive factors influencing National and Regional plan performance in 2024
• Emerging trends on industry, consumer behaviors, and preferences
• Strategies for crafting effective and local Medicare marketing campaigns to stand out from National competitors
• How to gain and retain Medicare members for upcoming 2025 AEP

The post Own Your Medicare Market: Lessons Learned and Winning Strategies for AEP 2024 appeared first on uniteus.com.

Now more than ever, providers are seeing the impact of social determinants of health on patient outcomes — but it’s something that most healthcare professionals aren’t trained on how to solve. New CMS health equity requirements will require providers to show how they’re addressing health-related social needs and how they are incorporating that strategy into their work. This requirement represents a huge opportunity to improve patient outcomes at scale but also introduces many open questions on how to do so.

Here’s the good news – you don’t have to figure it out alone. Join us for a free webinar with Nicole Harris-Hollingsworth, Vice President, Social Determinants of Health at Hackensack Meridian Health, Angela Schubert, Senior Business Analyst at BJC, and Gillian Feldmeth, Director of Research and Evaluation Operations at Unite Us, in a discussion on the benefits of automation and integration when providing whole-person care.

During this webinar, you will:

• Understand how to make better use of screening data to address SDoH needs.
• Learn how other organizations like yours have measured and reported on health equity goals and progress.
• Gain insight into how to leverage technology tools across the enterprise so that you can focus on what you do best: providing the best possible care to your patients.
• And more!

The post Achieving Whole-Person Care with Automation and Integration appeared first on uniteus.com.

With our proven track record of successfully facilitating secure closed-loop referrals and social care payments in New York and other Medicaid waiver states, Unite Us stands ready to support this important initiative.

Key Insights on Social Care Components

Social Care Networks (SCNs): 

SCNs, or contracted entities in each of the State’s nine regions, will be charged with establishing a network of social services and community providers to deliver eligible Medicaid beneficiaries with HRSN screenings and referral services. The State will reimburse selected HRSN services related to housing, food, and transportation.

Managed Care Plans: 

Managed care plans will contract with SCNs to deliver the selected HRSN services through two tiers of benefits. Level 1 services will be available to all Medicaid beneficiaries and will include referrals to existing public programs that are separate from the newly authorized HRSN services; Level 2 services will be provided to targeted beneficiaries who meet certain criteria. Subsequently, MCOs will be required to report data in order to evaluate the utilization and effectiveness of the HRSN services on health outcomes and equity of care.

Hospitals:  

Safety net hospitals located in Brooklyn, Bronx, Queens, and Westchester Counties can apply to participate in a Medicaid Hospital Global Budget Initiative that aims to help safety net hospitals transition to a global budget system. This initiative is designed to empower selected hospitals to prioritize population health and enhance quality of care in order to stabilize their financial situations and advance accountability and health equity.

Together, Driving Impact in New York

Building upon our ongoing collaborations with valued partners and community networks in New York, we are ready to deliver the solutions needed to successfully achieve the goals of the waiver while establishing a sustainable infrastructure for the continuous delivery of social care.

Leveraging Our Experience with State Medicaid Programs

We are proud to have established a reputation as the leading software solution for Medicaid programs addressing HRSNs across the country. Our cross-sector collaboration tools support a no-wrong-door system of social care, produce comprehensive insights to measure social need and community capacity at scale, and enable government leaders to strategically shift investments upstream to community-based partners, maximizing health benefits and better managing government spending. Like many Medicaid leaders, we know that social care coordination will improve outcomes, so we built our tools to collect structured social care data using a longitudinal care record. This allows states to measure real-time network performance and conduct integrated or longitudinal program evaluations over time, which will be critical in New York.

With networks in 44 states and partners leading the way in Medicaid transformation across the country, we’ve learned a lot about how we can support this critical work. Here are just a few examples:

We’re proud to support partners across the country in leveraging our solutions to support Medicaid waiver initiatives and advancing whole-person care. Interested in learning more about Unite Us solutions?

Get in Touch

The post Unite Us Celebrates the Approval of the New York State 1115 Medicaid Waiver: Improving Access to Care and Advancing Health Equity Together appeared first on uniteus.com.

CalAIM is California’s groundbreaking effort to improve the lives of the Medi-Cal population by meeting people where they are, addressing social drivers of health, and breaking down barriers in accessing care. This population health approach prioritizes prevention and whole-person care. 

An Opportunity for Joint Innovation

To navigate this dynamic environment and deliver comprehensive care to vulnerable populations, health plans need innovative solutions that go beyond traditional healthcare delivery services. That’s where Unite Us comes in.

CalAIM recognizes the need for a broader delivery system, program, and payment reform across the Medi-Cal program, making collaboration and coordination across sectors essential to address complex challenges such as homelessness, behavioral health care access, and the needs of justice-involved populations. Since Unite Us’ launch in 2013, we have established an industry standard for social care coordination. With best practices ensuring that people receive the care they need and accountable networks in every county, we are on the ground in California to meet the needs of health plans and the communities they serve to meet the state’s ambitious goals for population health.

For health plans and community organizations alike, ease of use is top of mind. We connect clinical and community organizations, delivering an intuitive coordination experience and reducing the risk of errors and inefficiencies, thanks to integrated workflows and tools: from screenings and eligibility to referrals and follow-ups. Our secure infrastructure for information exchange allows for a single member record and an integrated view across medical and non-medical services so as to enable non-duplicative, member-centered care across multiple touchpoints. A Unite Us partner at Florida health system identified 3.97 hours saved per case manager per week, resulting in an annual cost savings of $7,225 per case manager in a research and evaluation study.

Unite Us is the only vendor that has built a responsive and accountable social care network across California that provides real-time connectivity—supporting the upcoming DHCS requirement for a closed-loop referral system. We’ve partnered with population health management organizations, such as county agencies and community-based organizations, to help health plans swiftly contract and onboard community partners ready to serve your members. Our continuous training and user engagement ensure adoption and appropriate utilization. We support partners in achieving their goals and monitor network activities to understand how population needs evolve. 

Identifying Social Needs and Connecting People to Services

Unite Us provides a powerful interoperable platform that makes it easy to screen for social needs, identify the most suitable resources, and securely connect individuals to the services that can make a difference in their lives. In a fragmented healthcare landscape where individuals may need access to multiple delivery systems, Unite Us streamlines the process, ensuring that people receive holistic care.

CalAIM seeks to identify and manage member risk and needs through whole-person care approaches and addressing social determinants of health. Within CalAIM, Enhanced Care Management (ECM) and Community Supports (CS) are foundational parts of the transformation focused on:

• Breaking down the traditional walls of health care, extending beyond hospitals and health care settings into communities; 
• Introducing a better way to coordinate care; and
• Providing high-need members with in-person care management where they live.

This aligns with Unite Us’ mission to connect communities and improve well-being by addressing social needs and disparities. By leveraging the Unite Us Platform and network, ECM and CS partners across California are securely making closed-loop referrals without manual or duplicative efforts. 

Data-Driven Impact Measurement

Building healthier communities requires more than just addressing immediate challenges. It demands a data-driven approach to understand what works, what doesn’t, and how to scale impact across providers and networks. Unite Us offers our Platform and Insights Center as tools for health plans to comprehensively understand the members’ needs and outcomes of care delivery. 

CalAIM aims to track, in real-time, the impact of reducing disparities and improving health outcomes. With Unite Us, health plans can achieve this goal by measuring the effectiveness of their social care strategy and developing a data-driven population health management strategy. Unite Us’ data offerings include:

• The ability to standardize social care information, with over 700 referral and service outcomes to understand gaps and opportunities and ensure investments are working
• Secure information exchange infrastructure that is HIPAA-compliant and HITRUST, NIST, and SOC-2 certified
• Data-driven insights to proactively identify social care needs, as well as communication preferences to support enrollment into Enhanced Care Management and Community Supports Services

To avoid duplicative data entry and managing multiple data systems across settings, Unite Us offers a centralized, seamless experience that prioritizes the patient’s privacy first. When a Medi-Cal member gives consent to a provider to connect them to services through Unite Us, we ensure that their information will be protected and secure. That’s why we protect social care information under the same strict security standards required for protected health information under HIPAA and apply heightened protections for sensitive information such as 42 CFR Part 2-covered information.

Reimbursement for Social Care

Healthcare providers are reimbursed for the services they provide, and Unite Us believes that the same principle should apply to social care. With Unite Us Payments, funders can reimburse community-based organizations at scale, which can include Community Support and Enhanced Care Management Providers, for the services they already provide while measuring the success of social care funding initiatives over time.

Unite Us Payments simplifies the grant tracking, billing, enrollment, and authorization processes, aligning with CalAIM’s commitment to simplifying and scaling social care funding. This will centralize complex coding and rate information, boost efficiency, and scale impact while reducing risks of costly denials and rejections.

As an Enhanced Care Management and Community Support provider, we use Unite Us mainly for billing and so far, we have found the platform to be very user-friendly. We have also enjoyed the support from the Unite Us staff when dealing with minor issues and questions. The Unite Us Platform not only allows us to invoice for our clients but also to interact with other community support and thus extend the services we are able to provide for our clients.   – Merced County Rescue Mission

Enhancing Health Plan Outcomes

Hidden social needs can significantly impact the outcomes and experiences of health plan members. Aligning with CalAIM’s goal to improve quality outcomes and drive delivery system transformation, health plans can use Unite Us to:

• Better identify health-related social needs and risks in their population.
• Coordinate with responsive community partners for targeted interventions.
• Simplify reporting and demonstrate how they addressed diverse needs.

In the era of CalAIM, collaboration and innovation are key to achieving better health outcomes for California’s most vulnerable residents. Partnering with Unite Us empowers health plans to connect communities, streamline social care, measure impact, and simplify funding – ultimately improving the lives of the members they serve.

This is an opportunity to innovate, adapt, and grow with us!

Request a Demo

The post Enabling Health Plans To Meet CalAIM Requirements appeared first on uniteus.com.

County governments are on the frontlines of many of our nation’s most pressing challenges. From natural disasters and economic hardship to the opioid crisis and lingering public health issues stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, county leaders and workers are managing one crisis after another—and often, managing multiple crises at the same time. In addition to being responsive to these emergent needs, many of America’s 3,000+ counties are responsible for providing their residents with critical services like public safety and child protection. In part because of their sheer volume of responsibilities, counties are leading the way in creating innovative solutions through collaborative partnerships. 

Join Unite Us as we hear from local leaders across the country who have unleashed innovation in government by leveraging technology solutions and community partnerships to address constituents’ health-related social needs and improve service delivery.

In this webinar, we’ll dive into: 

• Success Stories: Discover how county leaders are leveraging technology to improve government services and the health outcomes of their residents.
• The Power of Collaboration: Learn about the partnerships and networks that are driving collective impact beyond county borders.
• Expert Insights: Gain valuable insights and lessons learned from experienced leaders. 

Whether you’re a government official, community leader, or are simply interested in the evolution of public service, you won’t want to miss this important discussion.

The post Local Leaders: Unleashing Innovation in Government appeared first on uniteus.com.

Addressing social needs is now at the forefront of policy and industry innovations to deliver whole-person, high-quality care.

This webinar explores new incentives and requirements for healthcare organizations to integrate social needs screenings and interventions in their care model. Plus, discover lessons learned from pioneering efforts that have advanced our understanding of how to address social needs to improve health outcomes.

The post How Addressing Social Needs Will Transform Healthcare Webinar appeared first on uniteus.com.

Drivers of Health

Healthcare organizations (especially payers and providers) are increasingly accountable for the health status of populations and communities. But only 10 to 20% of variability in health outcomes are directly influenced by medical care. In other words, doctor visits, trips to the emergency department, prescriptions, surgical procedures, treatment plans, blood tests, MRIs, and so on have limited impact on overall health. In fact, a person’s health outcomes are largely influenced by a range of drivers of health (DOH) that health systems, physician clinics, and health plans traditionally have no influence over. These drivers include housing security, food security, transportation, environmental conditions, region, and race and ethnicity, among other factors. 

Medication Adherence

What does that have to do with life sciences? While life sciences organizations are not directly “accountable” for a population’s health outcomes or the health equity of a given community, DOH can and do affect the efficacy of their drugs and their overall profitability. For example, medication non-adherence has a significant impact on health outcomes while also costing the life sciences sector a lot of money—an estimated $637 billion in lost revenues annually for patients with chronic conditions alone. However, the role that DOH play in non-adherence is still under-appreciated. 

The life sciences sector widely recognizes the role that drug costs play in improving medication adherence. The term “financial toxicity” has even emerged to describe the harsh emotional and economic stressors that some patients feel when their medical care, especially their medications, become too costly to afford. To improve medication adherence, many life sciences organizations offer support or access programs that make medications available at a discount or at no cost to patients with a specific level of demonstrated need. But such programs usually have limited uptake and fail to support all the patients who need help, or to take into account the complex set of challenges around DOH that too many patients face. According to a 2021 survey, life sciences companies spend more than $5 billion on patient support programs yearly, but only 3% of patients actually use them. In other words, drug costs are only the tip of the iceberg.

Overcoming Social Barriers to Health Through Collaboration

What can a life sciences organization do to overcome social barriers to health more broadly and effectively? Systemic challenges require systemic solutions. Hospitals, clinics, and health plans can’t address DOH comprehensively without working together and with different social services and community-based organizations. Life sciences organizations can and should play an important role in those efforts. In fact, without them, a big piece of the puzzle is missing.

By identifying DOH that influence medication-related challenges and developing a more coordinated strategy, life sciences organizations can enhance their current programs, improve medication adherence, advance their organizational mission, improve the health outcomes of patients, recapture billions in lost revenue, and elevate their level of engagement and collaboration with specific communities and partner organizations, patient populations, and prescribing physicians. Improvements like these can have cascading effects on drug development, clinical trials, market growth, and so on. 

Let’s look at a three-step pathway for life sciences organizations to scale and enhance patient assistance and support programs while better addressing health equity and whole-person care through localized community support. 

1. Leverage localized data to clarify the role that drivers of health play in health outcomes.

Health inequities pervade our society and have deep historical roots. They are caused and compounded by regional differences, economic factors, racism, demographics, and other factors. Fortunately, U.S. healthcare has the opportunity to impact these disparities and improve health for millions of people who otherwise struggle with diminished quality and length of life. 

DOH affect health status and outcomes in many different ways. One patient might be more likely to contract cancer or a respiratory illness because of the environmental conditions of their community. Another might have difficulty getting to doctor’s appointments because public transportation is unreliable, or they live in a rural area far from clinics and hospitals. Another might find it difficult to manage their diabetes because they don’t have ready access to nutritious food. 

Such inequities have a big impact on health, quality of life, and life expectancy. People who’ve been unemployed for more than six years, for example, have double the mortality rate of those with more steady jobs. People who are socially isolated are twice as likely to develop coronary artery disease. There’s a 16-year difference in life expectancy for residents of two Chicago neighborhoods separated by only six miles geographically—but they are worlds apart in terms of their access to resources and support.

The Healthcare System

DOH also increase pressure on the healthcare system. According to a 2020 report in Medical Care, people who require language services may be more likely to use the emergency department, increasing costs and taxing clinical resources. People enrolled in Medicare with low health literacy are more likely to experience hospital admission, higher medical costs, and lower access to care. Furthermore, people who experience housing instability are currently or potentially high-cost healthcare users. 

 To address these challenges and reduce their impact, many healthcare organizations are now implementing programs and processes to identify and help people who are at risk of poor health outcomes and in need of extra support. 

Drug Effectiveness 

Drug effectiveness is also influenced by DOH. Logically, drugs are only effective if patients take them as prescribed. But there can be many reasons why a patient doesn’t follow a doctor’s or pharmacist’s instructions. If a patient can’t afford their medications or co-pays, they might not pick up those prescriptions or they might take smaller or fewer doses than prescribed to make the medicine last longer. If they don’t have a stable home or a refrigerator, they might not be able to store their medicine safely and have it readily available. Or they might be forced to make trade-offs between paying for medications and paying the rent or buying groceries. 

Social factors have a measurable impact across the patient journey. For example, minority participation rates in clinical trials are about 2–16% despite making up almost 39% of the U.S. population. This lack of trial diversity has the potential to cost the system over hundreds of billions of dollars through poor health and early deaths. People who are challenged by DOH are also 12% less likely to get preventative screenings or to adhere to their medications, according to Unite Us primary research on our own claims and our Social Needs System (SNS) data. Black patients with breast cancer have a 41% higher mortality rate than White patients. The list goes on. To improve medication adherence, life sciences organizations must take DOH factors into account.

Harnessing Data to Improve Health Outcomes 

Reliable and scalable data sources help life sciences organizations identify social barriers to health, develop effective strategies for addressing them, and measure the impact of those interventions. To define a population, data sources should include the right clinical and social data, and be stratified by health disparity measures like race, income, and gender.

For example, a close look at marginalized communities within breast cancer populations reveals how DOH impact their health outcomes. That points the way to strategies that address negative  DOH as early as possible to improve health outcomes. A comprehensive assessment starts with a look at the overall population of women over 18 in the U.S. to match them with data sets related to DOH. We can then identify women with an elevated DOH risk and develop more effective screening and treatment strategies to meet their needs. This understanding will also inform care navigation, care plans, adherence strategies, and so on. 

That’s just one condition. The breast cancer journey will be different from the lung cancer journey or the diabetes journey. Data illuminates those differences and helps lay out appropriate solutions. That’s a good start for a more effective program, but to have a significant impact on health outcomes, life sciences organizations must engage with community-based organizations that can actually deliver the support patients need. 

The Unite Us Social Needs System (SNS) is the Industry Standard for Assessing Drivers of Health

Our SNS is a predictive framework that leverages comprehensive and integrated health and social care data to systematically identify and measure social, environmental, and economic risk. An accurate SNS score is based on 12 SNS Factors, including food insecurity, transportation needs, health literacy, financial literacy, uninsured, unemployed, childcare needs, housing quality, utility needs, lack of broadband internet, loneliness, and housing instability. The Unite Us Social Needs System (SNS) surfaces key areas of opportunity and actionable insights for social interventions to improve health and quality of life.

2. Leverage the expertise and services of organizations in the community to connect patients with support they need.

Identifying at-risk people, screening them proactively, and prescribing the right medications all sounds good in theory, but how can life sciences organizations engage with those patients and help them get the resources they need to support their health care? No life sciences organization is equipped to supply nutritious food, transportation, or secure housing on its own. Instead, it must work closely with community-based organizations to provide those services. 

Creating an Ecosystem of Care 

Investing in health equity takes an ecosystem that includes life sciences, health systems, health plans, and community-based organizations with the patient at the center. Life sciences organizations must find ways to strategically partner with CBOs to make sure patients are getting the whole ecosystem of care that they need. 

Just as the social care needs of individuals vary between local areas, so does the availability of organizations that supply the resources to meet those needs. We believe social care services should be available to people on a no-wrong-door basis. In other words, if a person in need of housing or nutritious food enters the ecosystem through a physician clinic, that clinic should be able to direct the person to a CBO that can help meet that need. Likewise, if a person who requires medication or clinical care enters the ecosystem through a food bank or a housing shelter, those organizations should be able to connect that person to an organization offering the medication or care they also need.

Patient Support Programs 

Patient support programs can be enhanced through connected ecosystems like Unite Us to seamlessly direct individuals to community resources and connect community organizations with healthcare organizations. This enables all stakeholders to stay connected around the individual in need, and it facilitates data sharing that ensures those organizations follow through on every referral. Just as importantly, it reduces the burden on caregivers and social services providers by streamlining processes. 

Life sciences organizations often partner with national groups to provide patient support but miss the mark on local connections. The COVID-19 pandemic brought this issue to the forefront. Since every region handled the pandemic differently, national groups were less effective in local communities. For example, during that period, the need for transportation soared in many regions around the country. Asked for support by our life sciences partners, Unite Us provided the infrastructure for connecting individuals in need with local providers of transportation wherever they lived. Those life sciences organizations were not the supplier of those resources, but they became the door through which patients accessed them. Other organizations in the community also benefited.

3. Measure the impact of community support to inform investment/partnership strategies.

The wonder of a connected data flow is that it provides continuous information on the changing needs of a population or community. It also informs stakeholders of the services that are actually being provided and reveals the impact on key measures like improving medication adherence, health status, and so on. 

Unite Us is unique in being able to systematically measure how people are leveraging social services and whether their DOH are being appropriately and effectively addressed. This helps life sciences organizations learn even more about the people taking their medicines. For example, perhaps the initial assessment pointed to food insecurity as the biggest barrier to improving medication adherence, but the data gained through the program revealed that child care and secure housing were even more important drivers of medication adherence. These insights can inform future efforts, investments, and partnership strategies. They can also help the philanthropic arm of life sciences organizations engage more directly and effectively with patients, communities, and community organizations.  

As that network of community-level partnership grows, life sciences organizations can deepen their ties in the community and begin to address health-related social needs even further upstream. They can then provide resources and support, for example, for community-based organizations to organize screening and preventative care interventions. 

Health = Health Care + Social Care

Disparities in health equity and DOH affect health status, health outcomes, patient experience, quality of life, community health, and overall healthcare costs. Increasingly, U.S. healthcare is turning that understanding into action.

Data and Information-Sharing 

Life sciences organizations have traditionally focused on access and support programs that help alleviate the cost of medications and related copays. But the underlying challenges affecting health are much deeper, more complex, and specific to individual populations and communities. A data-based understanding of social needs provides the groundwork for gaining insights that can inform more effective strategies and interventions. But those insights must be leveraged through partnerships with social services organizations on the ground to be effective. It takes a connected ecosystem of data and information sharing to activate the support that people need, and to keep improving those efforts and enhance impact. 

Life sciences organizations have shown their willingness and desire to address significant social challenges through their philanthropic arms, and the impact of those efforts can be improved with data and community-level coordination. It’s time to innovate on traditional approaches with new strategies, technologies, and partnerships suitable for the size of the challenge before us.

With their for-profit and philanthropic resources and unique vantage point in the healthcare ecosystem, life sciences organizations can play a central role in communicating the full picture of an individual’s health and social care needs and coordinating efforts to address them. When they’re fully connected in a broader community network, life sciences organizations can be leaders in driving whole-person care. 

Learn more about how Unite Us can help life sciences organizations transform patient services with whole-person care. 

Our Solutions

The post How Life Sciences Organizations Are Improving Medication Adherence Through Community Collaboration appeared first on uniteus.com.

Health Alliance for the Uninsured is a community collaborative that makes quality health care available to Oklahoma’s underserved, uninsured, and under-insured populations. Partners include physicians, safety-net clinics, hospitals, and other public and private partners. The HAU Healthcare Services Navigation Program uses Unite Us for patient referrals, both within their free and charitable clinic network and with other community agencies that meet basic needs. The Navigation Program has seen a significant increase in referrals over the past several months following a recent partnership with a local hospital system. They are leveraging these recent successes to expand partnerships with other local hospital systems.

One Client’s Story

Transportation is always a challenge for HAU’s patients, but the organization has found a great solution. The Navigation Team has recently started using Uber Health to ensure patients can get to partner clinics for their appointments. They now offer free rides for any new patients in need of transportation to access care. This transportation assistance removes a major barrier to health care for so many struggling Oklahomans.

The following patient story highlights how Unite Us is instrumental in all HAU programs, with every HAU client. The HAU Bi-Lingual Navigator, Diego, recently received a call from an individual who learned about HAU from their booth at a health fair. The patient needed primary care services and hadn’t seen a provider in a very long time.

After speaking to Diego and providing their consent, the patient was referred to a clinic through Unite Us. When the patient arrived at the clinic, Diego happened to be there assisting with HAU’s Prescription Assistance Program. The patient spoke only Spanish and didn’t have an interpreter, so they needed assistance communicating with the provider.

Diego quickly stepped up to translate the patient’s healthcare needs and, in turn, translate the provider’s findings, recommendations, and treatment plans. During the appointment, the provider recommended that the patient see a specialist. Diego helped the patient complete an application for a Care Connection specialty referral in Spanish.

Through the Unite Us Platform and Diego’s help, the patient got connected to the basic and specialty care they needed—what a success! This story shows the continuity of care HAU’s patients receive, and their dedication to closing the loop. They will always go above and beyond to help their patients.

For this series, we asked the HAU team about our work together and their vision of how cross-sector collaboration creates lasting change for pregnant and parenting people.

As we reflect on a decade bringing sectors together through technology to ensure people’s needs are met, what do you think has changed the most for your organization since the start of our partnership?

Unite Us has enabled HAU to track the outcomes and progress of patients receiving services from HAU and our free and charitable partner clinics. This has been a critical turning point for our Healthcare Services Navigation Program. Using the closed-loop referral system has allowed our navigators to ensure every individual who requests services is tracked until a successful outcome has been achieved.  We can also quickly provide comprehensive data reports and statistics to our supporters and financial partners.

How does HAU think about or approach collaboration with other sectors? What are the benefits to your patients?

At its core, HAU is a convener—connecting organizations, programs, and people with similar missions to maximize impact within central Oklahoma’s healthcare safety-net network. Our work creates opportunities for partnerships that benefit our entire community, especially those citizens who are most at risk and facing difficult circumstances. Most recently, we are working alongside the Regional Food Bank to help free and charitable clinics create food distribution programs so that no children go hungry during the summer months. Additionally, the Regional Food Bank is now including information about HAU and the services we offer in each of the food boxes they distribute, which increases awareness of HAU programs among the populations that need our services the most.

Are there any upcoming programs or initiatives related to drivers of health and community health at HAU that you are excited about?

This year, over 300,000 Oklahomans are expected to lose their Medicaid coverage (OHCA) due to the expiration of the COVID public health emergency (PHE). The increased burden on our healthcare safety net will be massive, and HAU is working closely with state and local healthcare leaders—and our clinic network—to prepare for the surge in demand. HAU Navigators have already seen a major uptick in calls from newly uninsured Oklahomans seeking healthcare services, and the Unite Us system is enabling us to ensure that every new client can find a new primary care home at one of our clinic partners.

Looking another 10 years into the future, what is your biggest hope for cross-sector collaboration to improve community health?

The challenges of our time—health care, education, poverty—are complex; each challenge impacts and intensifies the others. It is increasingly evident that these drivers of health are intertwined, and we need to address these challenges utilizing holistic strategies and solutions. Successfully meeting the needs of marginalized individuals will happen not with piecemeal solutions, but through a coordinated, intentional effort made by multiple stakeholders who share a common vision. Public-private partnerships will be critical to successfully relieving the suffering of those who are living on the edges of society and improving the health of the next generation of Oklahomans.  

A great example of this holistic approach is our effort to connect our clients with other services and organizations that address drivers of health. HAU currently has two embedded community health workers who use Unite Us to facilitate referrals for clients who need help with food, housing, child care, and other basic needs. Unite Us enables us to make these referrals seamlessly and track the outcomes of those referrals. For instance, we had one patient whose daughter and granddaughter had both recently moved in with her. After meeting our client’s healthcare needs, we were able to connect her daughter with a food pantry and secure a backpack and school supplies for her granddaughter. 

What thoughts would you share with Unite Us leadership as they look out on the next 10 years?

As alliances between nonprofit, government, philanthropic, and business sectors work together to address critical issues, we hope our shared approach upholds the dignity of the individuals we serve. We are proud to be a Unite Us champion, and we consistently encourage other organizations in our safety net community to join Unite Us so that we can achieve our shared goals.

“I believe we are setting a high standard nationally on how to utilize Unite Us for connecting individuals to healthcare first, and then other resources as needed. We are so grateful for our partnership with Unite Us as we work together to positively transform our community.” – Jeanean Yanish Jones, PhD(c), MA, CFRE Executive Director, HAU

Learn more about Health Alliance for the Uninsured.

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The post Better Together: How Health Alliance for the Uninsured is Safeguarding the Health and Well-Being of Uninsured Patients appeared first on uniteus.com.

Andy Slavitt was President Biden’s White House Senior Advisor for the COVID-19 response. He is currently a member of a President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) working group on public health. He’s led many of the nation’s most important healthcare initiatives, serving as President Obama’s head of Medicare and Medicaid and overseeing the turnaround, implementation, and defense of the Affordable Care Act. Slavitt is the “outsider’s insider,” serving in leading private and nonprofit roles in addition to his government services. He is founder and Board Chair Emeritus of United States of Care, a national, nonprofit health advocacy organization, and he’s a founding partner of Town Hall Ventures, a healthcare firm that invests in underrepresented communities. 

In 2019, Andy became an investor to Unite Us through Town Hall Ventures. As Town Hall Ventures explained, “Unite Us represents a rare opportunity to invest in a high-quality network asset that is well-positioned to address the unmet social determinants of health at scale through vertical integration of healthcare, government, and social service organizations.”

For this series, we asked Andy about our work together and his vision of how cross-sector collaboration creates lasting change for our country.

As we reflect on a decade bringing sectors together through technology to ensure people’s needs are met, what do you think has changed the most for public health in that time?

Ten years ago, there was no public health technology to speak of. Electronic medical records (EMRs) were just getting rolled out, and there were certainly no standards to communicate. Fax machines and paper checks and what information people had sat on hard drives. Today we have a playing field. We have the Cloud, we have fintech and smartphones, we have virtual visits and remote patient monitoring, and we have companies like Unite Us stitching things together so that we can finally add value to people’s lives.

What do you think about collaboration with other sectors to impact health outcomes?

Most companies want to come into healthcare and “disrupt” when really what they need to come in and do is radically collaborate. Too many companies draw a picture of the healthcare system with themselves at the center and everybody else revolving around them. If you did it the right way and if the person actually was in the center of their healthcare needs, we would build a support structure, common goals, and resources around them. People should be the reason we use to get out of our silos.

What impact are you most hopeful for as a result of our partnership?

Everywhere I look, people would benefit from Unite Us. They don’t always know it. But they know the problem they have. Coordinating services, building networks, and tapping into how people live instead of just their healthcare needs is the solution. I have seen states, service organizations, health systems, and entire communities transformed when Unite Us becomes part of their world.

What programs or initiatives related to drivers of health and community health are you most excited about? What’s on the cutting edge that you think will have the greatest impact in the next decade?

It’s clear that we need to house people in a stable way so that they have a chance at building meaningful pathways to a happy life, and that includes their health. Allowing people to accumulate savings and get a little breathing room is the number one thing we can do for people—particularly those who come from generations of poverty and whose families never had the chance to own a home and escape poverty. Put some money in the pockets of people who don’t have much, and it will do wonders for their health.

What is your biggest hope for cross-sector collaboration to improve community health?

We have an excellent evidence base for even the most complex illnesses. Medication-assisted treatment, long lasting injectables, continuous glucose monitors, mammograms. The hard part has always been engaging people up front to understand their needs and make services and resources available to them in a manner that shows them we understand how they live and the issues present in their daily life. It takes the proverbial village—connecting to people where they work, where they live, and where they play. The good news is there are resources and answers out there. The challenge is to have them reach people whenever and wherever that need identifies itself.

What thoughts would you share with Unite Us leadership as they look out on the next 10 years?

You’ve accomplished so much. You’ve taught the world what’s possible and yet we know you’re only scratching the surface. In many ways, that’s an ideal place to sit. Knowing you’re on the right track and seeing all the potential for more. It won’t be easy. Transforming things never is. But the payoff is huge. Think of one person who didn’t have to suffer, and then you can get a good night’s sleep knowing the world worked just a little bit better for them on that day thanks to Unite Us. Now imagine that happening every minute of every day. All over the country. 

The more essential Unite Us becomes, the better off we are as a country.

For more information about Town Hall Ventures and Andy, visit https://www.townhallventures.com/andy-slavitt.

Interested in learning more about how to bring Unite Us to your organization?

Get in Touch 

The post Better Together: Andy Slavitt’s Reflection on Radical Collaboration appeared first on uniteus.com.