Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Pleasant Radford Jr., MBA, CHIE, Health Equity Officer at UCare

Transcript

Pleasant Radford Jr., MBA, CHIE, Health Equity Officer at UCare · Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

• 0:00
  Welcome everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
• 0:02
  I'm Mariah Muhammad, writer and moderator with Becker's
• 0:05
  Healthcare. And I'm thrilled to have with me
• 0:07
  today, Pleasant Radford junior, health equity officer at
• 0:10
  UCare.
• 0:11
  Pleasant, welcome to the podcast. We're very excited
• 0:13
  to have you join us today. To get
• 0:15
  us started, would you mind please introducing yourself
• 0:17
  and telling us a bit about your background?
• 0:19
  Absolutely.
• 0:20
  My name is Pleasant Raffer junior, and I
• 0:23
  am
• 0:24
  the health equity officer at UCare.
• 0:27
  I've been at UCare for over 4 years
• 0:30
  now in this capacity,
• 0:32
  and and my job is to
• 0:35
  find ways to advance health equity for
• 0:38
  the more than 600,000
• 0:41
  members that we serve
• 0:42
  in the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin.
• 0:47
  Outside of of work, I I live in
• 0:50
  Minneapolis
• 0:51
  with my wife and and 2 children
• 0:54
  and
• 0:55
  love spending time outdoors,
• 0:57
  cooking,
• 0:58
  biking,
• 1:00
  watching movies,
• 1:01
  all that fun stuff when I have the
• 1:03
  opportunity to do that.
• 1:06
  Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Thank you so much for
• 1:08
  giving us that background.
• 1:11
  So health equity is obviously a big trend,
• 1:14
  and just a focal point for a lot
• 1:16
  of health care organizations.
• 1:17
  What are some of the biggest trends and
• 1:19
  headwinds you're following right now, that will lead
• 1:22
  you into the new year?
• 1:24
  Absolutely. The the first thing that comes to
• 1:27
  mind is trust.
• 1:28
  The American people have
• 1:31
  been
• 1:32
  very frustrated with the current state of the
• 1:34
  health care industry, and I think it has
• 1:37
  reached an apex
• 1:39
  with the the untimely death of the former
• 1:42
  UnitedHealthcare
• 1:43
  CEO, Brian Thompson.
• 1:45
  It's just a reminder
• 1:47
  that
• 1:49
  changes are urgently needed to reform
• 1:51
  systemic practices
• 1:53
  and restore trust
• 1:55
  and improve health overall. And and that's gonna
• 1:58
  require
• 1:58
  a lot of collaboration
• 2:00
  and a lot of policy change to make
• 2:04
  sure that we are really reforming the the
• 2:08
  current state of our health care industry.
• 2:11
  Medicaid,
• 2:12
  that continues to be a a trend that
• 2:14
  I'm I'm following,
• 2:16
  especially as we look at the the new
• 2:19
  administration
• 2:20
  that will start on January 20th.
• 2:23
  There have been discussions
• 2:24
  to
• 2:26
  slash Medicaid,
• 2:27
  and and that has a a deep impact
• 2:30
  at a federal level, but also at a
• 2:33
  state level
• 2:34
  as many states use those federal dollars
• 2:37
  for their their populations,
• 2:40
  their their Medicaid populations,
• 2:42
  and Medicare.
• 2:44
  And and so if state budgets are are
• 2:47
  smaller,
• 2:48
  then this will force health officials and state
• 2:51
  leaders to make difficult decisions
• 2:54
  related to their their residents'
• 2:56
  health care, and it will
• 2:58
  unfortunately
• 2:59
  put those vulnerable populations
• 3:02
  at a higher risk of of vulnerability.
• 3:06
  And so that's another trend that I'm following.
• 3:09
  AI, artificial intelligence, continues to transform
• 3:13
  health care delivery
• 3:15
  and experience.
• 3:16
  And as I said before,
• 3:18
  if budgets
• 3:19
  are cut
• 3:21
  at a state level,
• 3:23
  then
• 3:24
  many of these states
• 3:25
  may start or continue to use AI
• 3:29
  to automate their processes.
• 3:31
  And and that could
• 3:33
  potentially perpetuate
• 3:34
  or exacerbate
• 3:36
  some of these health care disparities that we
• 3:38
  continue to work on.
• 3:41
  And it can lead to,
• 3:43
  it could lead to to to even more
• 3:46
  more problems, administrative problems,
• 3:49
  poor health,
• 3:50
  and and more dissatisfaction
• 3:52
  with the the health care industry.
• 3:54
  And finally, aging.
• 3:57
  As we know, the country's
• 3:58
  aging population
• 4:00
  continues to grow.
• 4:01
  And
• 4:03
  last stat that I read recently shared that
• 4:06
  30%
• 4:07
  of the $600,000,000,000
• 4:10
  spent on Medicaid is allocated
• 4:12
  to long term services
• 4:15
  and support.
• 4:16
  And so once again,
• 4:18
  if we see
• 4:20
  smaller
• 4:21
  funds being allocated
• 4:23
  at a federal level and it trickles down
• 4:26
  to the state level,
• 4:28
  then
• 4:29
  the home care industry will will be disproportionately
• 4:33
  impacted.
• 4:34
  And the direct care workers that provide the
• 4:37
  care for
• 4:38
  our our disabled population or elderly population,
• 4:43
  they they will also be impacted as well.
• 4:47
  Yeah. Definitely. I I definitely hope that the
• 4:50
  Medicare, Medicaid,
• 4:51
  everything does not get cut at all for
• 4:53
  any of the 50 states,
• 4:54
  especially when we discuss the elderly and aging
• 4:57
  population,
• 4:58
  and obviously what they need to survive.
• 5:01
  How are you thinking about growth for the
• 5:03
  future? Are there any programs or initiatives that
• 5:06
  you're,
• 5:07
  kind of focused on growing in your organization?
• 5:11
  Absolutely.
• 5:12
  For me, personally,
• 5:14
  we continue to
• 5:16
  find ways
• 5:18
  to deepen our engagement within our community.
• 5:22
  It's so important to to understand
• 5:24
  what are the the issues that continue to
• 5:28
  challenge our members and
• 5:31
  and more importantly, how can we work together?
• 5:34
  How can we foster meaningful interactions?
• 5:37
  How can we continue to solicit that feedback
• 5:40
  to cocreate products and initiatives?
• 5:44
  As I said before, trust continues to be
• 5:47
  a
• 5:48
  a a sore point within the health care
• 5:50
  industry.
• 5:51
  And one way to
• 5:54
  to to change that is to continue to
• 5:56
  engage with our
• 5:58
  with our our members,
• 6:00
  to understand what are those sore points
• 6:03
  and how can we change them together and
• 6:06
  how can we evaluate progress
• 6:09
  and and work together. So customer
• 6:12
  community engagement, retention,
• 6:14
  and satisfaction
• 6:17
  are are some of the areas that I'm
• 6:18
  focused on related to growth.
• 6:22
  Thank you for sharing those. Is is there
• 6:24
  a project or initiative from,
• 6:27
  this year or maybe the previous year that
• 6:29
  yielded the best results for you?
• 6:32
  Absolutely.
• 6:33
  We continue to
• 6:36
  strengthen
• 6:37
  the data collection around sexual orientation and gender
• 6:40
  identity.
• 6:42
  This has been a multiyear effort
• 6:44
  that began in 2020
• 6:47
  one, I wanna say,
• 6:49
  when we reached out to community,
• 6:52
  the LGBTQIA
• 6:53
  plus community, to understand
• 6:56
  how can we make sure that we collect
• 6:59
  the data
• 7:00
  that you want us to so that you're
• 7:03
  seen?
• 7:04
  And so through that collaboration,
• 7:06
  we were able to create
• 7:08
  4 basic questions
• 7:10
  related to gender identity,
• 7:13
  pronouns,
• 7:14
  sexual orientation,
• 7:16
  and and sex at birth.
• 7:18
  And we've added those questions
• 7:20
  into our health risk assessment forms.
• 7:23
  And
• 7:24
  as of now, we've collected more than 53,000
• 7:27
  responses
• 7:29
  from our members.
• 7:30
  It's small compared to the more than 600,000
• 7:34
  members that we serve,
• 7:36
  but it's a step in the right direction.
• 7:38
  And and we're excited about that because
• 7:42
  it's we're now able to
• 7:44
  operationalize
• 7:45
  that data to improve operations.
• 7:48
  For example, we can now work with marketing
• 7:51
  to
• 7:52
  to tailor our marketing communications
• 7:55
  that reflect what's important to the LGBTQIA
• 7:59
  plus
• 7:59
  population.
• 8:01
  We wanna make sure we're using the right
• 8:03
  pronouns, that we're using images that reflect
• 8:06
  who they are and their health needs.
• 8:09
  We can work more with the the quality
• 8:12
  department to design,
• 8:15
  interventions
• 8:16
  and initiatives that that meet the needs of
• 8:19
  of our population.
• 8:21
  We can continue to work with
• 8:23
  customer service, for example,
• 8:25
  or our provider network to understand,
• 8:28
  do we have the providers that
• 8:31
  are,
• 8:32
  that are from the community, in the community
• 8:35
  to meet the needs of our of our
• 8:37
  population. And so we're we're excited. We're excited
• 8:40
  that
• 8:41
  we have what we have. We'll continue to
• 8:44
  to gather more data in 2025.
• 8:48
  And, also, we wanna
• 8:50
  make sure that
• 8:52
  our our staff are trained
• 8:54
  on how to use the data, how to
• 8:57
  work with our members by using the correct,
• 9:01
  pronouns
• 9:02
  and addressing them.
• 9:04
  So we're we're super excited about that.
• 9:08
  Yeah. Those are definitely,
• 9:10
  things that I think,
• 9:12
  also sound exciting to me.
• 9:14
  It sounds like a great step forward into
• 9:16
  the right direction. So thank you so much
• 9:18
  for sharing all of those thoughts, Pleasant. This
• 9:20
  has definitely been an informative discussion.
• 9:23
  So, again, I wanna thank you so much
• 9:24
  for coming on Becker's HealthCare, and I look
• 9:26
  forward to connecting with you again soon. Thank
• 9:28
  you so much. Have a great day.