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 on how to address patients’ SDoH needs through social care screenings, personalized resources, closed-loop referrals, and robust outcomes tracking. 

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 Screen, Refer, Resolve: A Toolkit for Addressing Patients’ SDOH Needs 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.

In 2022, the United States was home to an estimated 16.2 million Veterans, all with different lived experiences during and after service, across branches, and over time. Therefore, it is essential that health concerns among Veterans and active service members are not considered monolithic. As such, the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) has adopted a whole health approach to care that supports Veterans’ health by empowering and equipping people to take charge of their health and well-being and to live their lives to the fullest. 

When addressing Veterans’ health-related needs, it’s crucial to recognize that health outcomes are influenced by more than just healthcare access. Veterans frequently encounter obstacles such as food insecurity, housing instability, transportation issues, and limited job opportunities. Addressing these needs will span various organizations, providers, and clinics, leading to an increased likelihood of care fragmentation, which risks information loss, medication issues, and gaps in service. Care coordination can help ensure that Veterans receive timely and high-quality care, avoid unnecessary duplication of services, and improve their overall health outcomes. According to a study by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Veterans who received care coordination had a lower risk of 30-day ED visits and a higher probability of PCP visits at 13–30 days post-ED visit compared to those who did not receive care coordination.

“Uniting health and human service systems through effective care coordination is the next step in reducing duplicity of efforts, maximizing return on investment for health care dollars for veterans and civilians alike, as well as improving outcomes for those who have served our nation.”  – Megan Andros and Reiley Burris from The Hill

Since its founding in 2013, Unite Us has launched a variety of networks to address the needs of Veterans and military families. As a Veteran-founded organization, Unite Us is uniquely positioned to assess and address social needs while assisting Veterans in gaining access to the services needed to retain health and thrive in their civilian lives. 

Our approach drives the collaboration needed for those serving Veterans and their families to:

• Identify and understand community needs to inform strategy.
• Deliver services by effectively engaging the right populations and collaborating with local partners to connect them to resources.
• Pay organizations for covered services.

Serving Those in North Carolina Who’ve Served

Since 2006, North Carolina—home to the eighth-largest Veteran population in the nation (621,000) and two major military bases: Fort Liberty (Army) and Camp Lejeune (Marine Corps)—has been focused on improving Veteran access to essential, coordinated services: benefits, health and wellness, employment, legal, and financial services. 

Since 2015, Unite Us has aided these efforts by building a statewide consortium of North Carolina-based Veteran service organizations through the NCServes network, now part of the NCCARE360 network which serves all community members. These organizations are vital in ensuring best-in-class service for Veterans and their families. Network partners include Veteran Services of the Carolinas, Veterans Bridge Home, the Governor’s Institute, and the NC Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS). To date, the network has served over 20,000 Veterans and active service members.

Over the last eight years in North Carolina, we have seen the unemployment rate of Veterans decrease from 3.2% in 2015 to 2.2% in 2022, and the rate of homelessness among Veterans decreased by 22% in the same time. While these yearly trends are reassuring, there is still a way to improve efficiency in care coordination: seasonal trend analysis. By utilizing real-time social care data and visualizing these needs over time, organizations can gain additional, actionable insight into the needs of the individuals they serve and improve outreach efforts.

Leveraging Real-Time Social Care Analytics

Of all North Carolinian active service members or Veterans assisted through the Unite Us Platform since 2018, the top overall needs were housing & shelter (50%), employment (26%), benefit navigation (20%), income support (18%), and food assistance (16%). 

Analyzing the needs of referred Veterans or active service members in the previous five years, we can begin to examine seasonal trends in need for those residing in North Carolina. Of the individuals sampled, the need for housing is persistent throughout the year, while the need for benefit navigation and employment assistance peaks at the start of the year. The need for financial assistance peaks during winter, and food assistance requests peak in summer and fall. (Source: Unite Us Platform data, pulled October 30, 2023)

With the most recent real-time data from 2023, we can observe how this year’s trends compare to the past. Proportionally, more Veterans and active service members require housing & shelter throughout 2023 than in the five years prior.

Using Unite Us, community-based organizations (CBOs) can observe real-time fluctuations in the needs of those they serve, improving planning and driving service allocation and targeted investment. 

Proactively Identifying Social Care Needs

Actively tracking service requests may only capture some of the community’s needs. For instance, due to environmental stressors specific to military personnel, there is an increased risk of substance use disorders (SUD); however, in our sample, this need remains proportionally scarce. To grasp the genuine need, we must consider all aspects of lived conditions and working environments to proactively identify social care needs, recognizing that the key to whole health lies in understanding the broader spectrum of services.

Unite Us Social Connector helps organizations proactively identify social needs in their communities through the Unite Us Social Needs System (SNS)—the industry standard for predicting and measuring individual-level SDoH in populations across the country. It empowers organizations to utilize data to inform care management, community outreach, funding strategies, and intervention design. This solution enables veteran-focused organizations to proactively understand the needs of Veteran households, connect them to needed services, and ensure appropriate programming exists for them throughout the state. 

Takeaways: Strategies for Addressing Veterans’ Health-Related Social Needs

Unite Us is proud to help serve those who have served our country in our nationwide networks. Through our dedicated efforts, we have identified key strategies to keep in mind when addressing the health-related social needs of Veterans: 

• Whole Person Approach: Veterans’ experiences and needs are diverse and unique, requiring a holistic, cross-sector approach beyond healthcare access.
• Importance of Care Coordination: Care coordination is vital to ensure timely and high-quality support, preventing duplication of services, and improving overall health outcomes for Veterans.
• Real-Time Social Care Analytics: Analyzing real-time data helps identify seasonal trends in Veterans’ needs, enabling care organizations to plan and respond effectively.
• Proactive Social Care Needs Identification: Understanding the comprehensive spectrum of Veterans’ needs is vital. Challenges arise in merely observing these needs through screening, emphasizing the importance of proactive identification to ensure a comprehensive approach to Veterans’ well-being.

Better understand the needs of Veterans in your community with Unite Us.

Learn more 

The post Serving Those Who’ve Served: Addressing the Social Needs of Veterans in North Carolina appeared first on uniteus.com.

We believe that prioritizing the privacy and dignity of individuals seeking care is fundamental to the mission we share with our partners across communities. To that end, we’re sharing our vision of the rights we believe all individuals should have with respect to their social care information—and how all partners in this work can advance our shared goals to enable secure and seamless access to care. 

Unite Us has built our solution to center our core principles of privacy and dignity and these five fundamental rights for every person seeking care. Our platform features a robust consent process that is centered around the person seeking care. The consent form is translated into over forty languages and available in multiple formats to promote accessibility. We designed this consent model to protect client privacy and alleviate the challenges people face when seeking services. When accessing services through providers coordinating through our platform, individuals have the right to know what information is collected from their providers, the right to consent to the sharing of their information, the right to correct their information, the right to revoke consent to sharing their information, and the right to delete their information. 

In addition to these fundamental rights, individuals seeking care should trust that their information will be protected and secure. At Unite Us, we protect all social care information as though it were protected health information, employing the same security measures required by HIPAA for all data on our platform, regardless of where it originates. We also provide heightened protections for information subject to 42 CFR Part 2 and other federal and state protections, enabling providers that have historically been siloed to collaborate with their partners and improve outcomes. Our partners have welcomed this opportunity to securely connect across sectors: 

“Normally, we are not able to use any other platforms because they could jeopardize the safety of survivors of gender-based violence. Not being able to receive and make referrals through other platforms kept us siloed. This is the first community-based referral connector system that we’ve ever seen that would meet our qualifications and ensure survivor safety. Unite Us worked closely with us to ensure that this platform could work for our population. This partnership creates more referral pathways for healthcare and other community-based organizations to connect survivors to our services that might not have otherwise been referred.” – Executive Director of a Community Provider Serving Survivors of Domestic and Interpersonal Violence in Oregon

By providing the technology and resources to support secure coordination across sectors, we alleviate the burdens imposed on resource-constrained providers serving our communities. 

When we develop new features for our solutions, we always take into account community feedback to ensure that the individuals in need of care and community partners serving them are heard. We listen to our community partners to reflect our shared vision to promote seamless access to care that centers the individual. As one community partner shared: 

“Unite Us has successfully and easily linked families with whom I work and resources specific for their needs. I recently had a family with a variety of needs. The mother and her two children were living in a car but were able to get a home through a community program. Unfortunately, they did not have any furniture, lighting, clothing, or household goods. The mother was also interested in assistance in obtaining childcare and a job. The mother agreed to me entering her information into the Unite Us Platform. It took about five minutes or so. The mother was sent a text message from the program, where she had to give electronic permission for Unite Us to disseminate her information to the resources I had chosen. Within 24 hours, she was linked to a potential employer, financial resources, and community resources to meet their concrete needs. The mother has been so grateful for the resources and assistance.” – Social Worker in West Virginia

These five fundamental rights—coupled with solutions that protect social care information under the same strict protections required for protected health information—protect individuals’ privacy and help ensure that their social care needs are addressed. 

Get in Touch

The post How Unite Us Advances Privacy and Dignity for Individuals Seeking Care appeared first on uniteus.com.

Now more than ever, health plans need to invest in—and accentuate—their competitive advantages. Understanding 2022 winning strategies, trends in 2023 plan offerings, and emerging consumer behaviors and preferences are critical to informing strategies to drive sustainable growth. 

In this webinar, you will learn about:

• Continuing and emerging trends reshaping the market
• Competitive dynamics influencing winning vs. losing plans 
• Lessons learned on how to stand out and achieve sustainable growth

The post Medicare Advantage Landscape 2023 appeared first on uniteus.com.

We know from research and personal experience that people are healthier when they have safe housing, access to healthy food, and viable transportation options. Despite this reality, there has been a historical lack of funding and infrastructure for organizations addressing social determinants of health in communities across the U.S. But not anymore. Systems are changing to finally meet people where they are and elevate social care to the same priority level as healthcare.

In North Carolina, the Healthy Opportunities Pilots is one of the nation’s first comprehensive programs to provide payers, providers, and community-based organizations with the tools, infrastructure, and financing necessary to integrate non-medical services directly related to improved health outcomes into the delivery of care.

Using our Social Care Payments Solution, which enables stakeholders to access and pay for social care through the Unite Us Platform, local government agencies, health plans, and providers alike have been able to partner effectively, manage program efficiency, and ultimately, expand their programs’ impacts.

Join us at our panel, The Future of Funding, to hear more from the organizations in North Carolina that have gone beyond the call of duty to connect individuals to care in their own communities. We’ll discuss the Unite Us Payments product and learn more about how organizations like yours can better prepare for these types of strategic investments.

The post The Future of Funding: Building Stronger Communities Through Strategic Investments appeared first on uniteus.com.

• Healthcare costs: Total cost of care per member, per year (PMPY)
• Adverse system utilization: Hospital and emergency department visits
• Compliance and adherence: Care plan compliance and medication adherence
• Consumer experience: CAHPS surveys and retention
• Health outcomes: Physical and mental health outcomes
• Other measures: Unhealthy days and COVID impact

Measuring the Impact of SDoH

With the emergence of value-based care and at-risk contracting, today’s health plans and providers are increasingly responsible for total care costs and health outcomes for their members and patients. As a result, more organizations are beginning to focus on nonclinical and upstream factors that drive costly healthcare utilization and diminished health status. To systematically measure the impact of SDoH challenges across a variety of demographics, geographies, and health outcomes definitions, we have developed an innovative analytics approach that defines and measures social and economic vulnerability.

Game-Changing Opportunity to Make a Difference

To improve health trajectories in the U.S., the healthcare industry must flip the traditional care model from reactive to proactive. This involves identifying and stratifying advanced clinical and social needs. Health plans and providers can move the needle significantly by embedding appropriate SDoH programs in their workflow and engaging with responsive community partners. As a pioneer for data-driven SDoH innovation, our end-to-end solution enables organizations to effectively assess social care needs, identify optimal engagement strategies, and enroll individuals in needed services. An excerpt from the white paper:

“The success of these interventions will unlock new funding streams, galvanize the next generation of health policy, and reinforce incentives for collaboration and data sharing. Most importantly, they will engage traditionally underserved patient populations and communities, ensure they feel heard the first time they tell their story, and lead to meaningful improvements in health and quality of life.”

– Spencer Pratt, Vice President of Sales Solutions at Unite Us

Learn how your organization can improve health outcomes using SDoH:

Download the White Paper

The post Whole-Person Care and the Impact of Social Determinants of Health appeared first on uniteus.com.