Latest / Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast / Advancing Health Equity: Insights from Valerie Martinez, chief health equity officer, Blue Shield of California's Promise Health Plan

Transcript

Advancing Health Equity: Insights from Valerie Martinez, chief health equity officer, Blue Shield of California's Promise Health Plan · Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast

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  Hello, everyone. This is Jacob Emerson with the
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  Becker's Payer Issues podcast.
• 0:32
  Thrilled today to be joined by the 1st
• 0:34
  chief health equity officer at Blue Shield of
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  California Promise Health Plan, Valerie Martinez.
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  Valerie, thank you so much for taking the
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  time to be with me on the podcast
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  today.
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  Absolutely. I'm so grateful for the invitation to
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  be here.
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  So, Valerie, before we dive into everything we
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  wanna talk with you about, can you tell
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  us a little bit more about yourself, your
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  health care career background,
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  and what it is that you're doing today
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  at Blue Shield of California?
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  Certainly.
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  I am a native of Southern California. So
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  having grown up in Los Angeles County, I've
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  been afforded the opportunity to work in, I
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  would say, the clinical space. I worked at
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  federally qualified health centers and ambulatory care setting,
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  mostly in roles of risk management, quality improvement
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  at, the executive and director levels.
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  And then I during this time, I just
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  found my passion
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  for advocating for communities in need, and I
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  recognize the opportunity to move into managed care
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  where my reach and the scope and the
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  impact of the work that we do would
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  be recognized at a greater level. And so
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  I started in managed care about,
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  10 years ago, and I appreciate that I
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  can bring the experience having worked in the
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  clinical setting, bridging that now with the managed
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  care setting, and understanding what it's like for
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  provider practices for patients and some of the
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  challenges
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  or issues with access to care, let's say,
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  or to quality healthcare.
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  And so I love the opportunity
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  about being able to serve, in this position,
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  the Medi Cal population.
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  Absolutely.
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  And like we mentioned in the intro, to
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  our conversation today, Valerie, you're the 1st chief
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  health equity officer,
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  for one of the state's largest medical plans.
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  Can you share with us a little bit
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  about what the scope of your responsibilities
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  entail and ultimately why Blue Shield decided to
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  create this role?
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  Yes, certainly.
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  Starting first, I report to Blue Shield's Promise,
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  President and Chief Health Equity Officer, Kristin Cerf.
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  And I think that that is indicative of
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  the level of importance of this role and
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  recognizing how critical this role will be to
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  meeting and exceeding some of our goals when
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  it comes to ensuring that our members
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  have the best opportunities to be able to
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  reach their full potential.
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  That said, in my role, I'm responsible for
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  meeting all of the equity related regulatory requirements,
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  and this is a new focus for our
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  regulator in California.
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  And so I'm working to lead a lot
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  of cross functional work coordinating
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  across the organization
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  and even externally with our partners and some
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  of our practices and community based organizations
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  with whom we partner. And so my focus
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  is mostly on regulatory,
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  but we're also working to integrate health equity
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  internally across some functional areas and then working
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  on enhancing those relationships with our members, the
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  communities we serve, our providers,
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  to be able to truly listen,
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  hear from them, hear about some of their
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  perceived needs and challenges,
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  and be able to drive programming
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  that helps to bridge those gaps or those
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  inequities.
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  Absolutely. And I appreciate you, bringing up California's,
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  really strong focus on health equity right now
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  for its Medicaid program, and I I definitely
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  wanna dive into that a little bit more.
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  But, Valerie, before we do, I think it
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  would be helpful for our audience to ask
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  you,
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  what your view of health equity is. How
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  do you define that both personally, but also
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  from the lens of Blue Shield and the
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  really important population that you serve?
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  Yeah, I would define equity if we just
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  look at the the standard definition, right? It's
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  making sure that we're affording opportunities
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  so individuals can achieve their best optimal health.
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  And we recognize that everybody's best optimal health
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  varies per person. Right? Your your best health
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  state is gonna be very different from my
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  health state. So what can we do to
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  remove barriers
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  to improve access,
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  look at cultural concordance? Are folks
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  seeing a provider who's gonna best meet their
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  needs and listen and be able to support
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  them? And so
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  to me, that's the definition, right? Everybody is
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  achieving their best version of their health, and
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  as a health plan, we're working to remove
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  those barriers or help to improve or make
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  accommodations,
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  and create those custom,
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  plans, if you will, to be able to
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  help people get to that end state.
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  Absolutely. And what would you say are some
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  of the challenges you faced, Valerie, in terms
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  of removing some of those barriers to access
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  optimal health?
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  Well, when we look at access, right, we
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  recognize that there,
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  there in some areas are gaps,
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  to be able to have providers
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  just within time and distance standards. Right? There
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  there are not enough providers that exist, so
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  this can lend to,
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  maybe a longer wait than than we would
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  hope to see.
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  So just, you know, just looking at geographically,
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  time distance standards lends to, inequitable
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  access to care.
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  But when we look at even understanding our
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  populations and the needs of our communities, I
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  would say that data is a challenge.
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  Having that information at the ready,
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  to be able to identify
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  who is in need of what and when
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  so we can be able to provide that
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  support immediately to help bridge those gaps and
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  maybe not 30, 60, 90 days after we
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  after that point in time occurs. So looking
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  at the data, understanding our populations, I think,
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  is critical. It's gonna be critical to the
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  work that we're leading in equity to be
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  able to create those tailored interventions
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  for the populations who are in need. Right?
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  Looking at certain demographic variables, maybe it's certain
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  subpopulations
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  like members who speak Vietnamese. What are the
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  challenges that our Vietnamese speaking members are having,
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  and what can we do to help them
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  again to reach that equity goal that we
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  have. So for us, I think that data
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  is an opportunity to be able to enhance
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  the the data connections, health, equity
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  data, looking at disaggregation
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  of some of the demographic variables, or maybe
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  it's infrastructure
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  looking at connection with HIEs or health information
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  exchanges to be able to get information from
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  our partners and send information to our partners.
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  So again, we're able to be able to
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  help members at the time that they need
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  it. Right? It's all about providing the right
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  care at the right time.
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  Absolutely. So you're really digging into the data
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  to find out what your members need across
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  what is a very diverse state and population
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  that you serve. Any other specific innovations you
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  you'd mentioned, Valerie, in terms of what's taken
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  place over, let's say, the last year or
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  so,
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  at Blue Shield's Promise Health Plan?
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  Certainly. I would say we have a a
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  focus on serving our communities,
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  supporting our providers,
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  looking at our internal infrastructure and workforce,
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  and then also working with our members directly,
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  right, as we look at our quality outcomes.
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  So I can give you one example. When
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  we look at our community focus, we have
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  community resource centers down in Los Angeles County,
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  and this year marks the 5 years of
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  having launched those community resource centers. And with
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  these resource centers, we're able to bring support
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  services into
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  areas that are in vital need of support
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  or even it's activity engagement education.
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  So the CRCs, the Community Resource Centers, they
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  offer workshops, we have fitness classes, nutrition classes,
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  there's cooking classes.
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  We offer CPR certification
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  and first aid to our community members.
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  We even bring in health screenings or assistance
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  with social services and helping people fill out
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  any applications
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  if there's a linguistic barrier or, a literacy
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  barrier as well.
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  And so, we have, by the end of
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  the year, we will have 14 community resource
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  centers, and they're just they're amazing,
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  offerings that we're able to bring the community.
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  And we are seeing some some value with
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  that. Right? Members are feeling better connected
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  to to Blue Shield. They're getting the vital
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  education, vital support services that without these community
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  resource centers, they would not be able to
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  have the support within the community.
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  And speaking of the the community work and
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  outreach that Blue Shield does, Valerie, can you
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  tell us a little bit more about the
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  company's mobile mammography clinics? We've heard about that,
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  from your leadership in the past. We would
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  love, your perspective on this and any updates
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  on those clinics to date.
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  Certainly.
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  And first, let's just talk about that from
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  an equity perspective. Blue Shield using the data.
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  Right? We identified that there were areas who
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  were in need of mammograms
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  where as we talked about the top of
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  the call,
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  with the access issues. Right? Just not having
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  enough providers in certain areas. So we use
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  that data to identify where we can bring
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  mobile mammography on the road and bring it
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  to the very streets and communities that we
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  serve who are in most need. And so
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  we offered mobile mammogram vans, and then there
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  were the units that are taken to locations.
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  This was in Los Angeles County and also
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  at some of our community resource centers. We
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  went to shopping centers and some of our
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  neighborhood clinics as well, or
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  federally qualified health centers. And so each week
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  before the event, we would identify members who
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  were due for their mammogram screening, and then
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  we would help to coordinate an appointment, and
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  then we even offer transportation to bring them
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  in when these on-site mammogram
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  services would be available. And then we also
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  stressed that the screenings were offered at no
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  cost to our members. And what we found
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  is that we we hosted 72 mobile clinics,
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  and we were able to provide over 1300
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  mammograms
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  to members who would previously have very little
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  access or have challenge to being able to
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  complete those screenings.
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  Wow. I mean, some great numbers you just
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  shared. 1300 members that access to service they
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  may not have been able to before. Really
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  great example. So I I appreciate you sharing
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  that with us, Valerie.
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  Before we go, I I earlier, you had
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  briefly touched on, California's work with its Medicaid
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  program to try and make it a more
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  equitable
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  program across the state. Can you give a
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  brief overview to our listeners who might not
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  be familiar with the transformation that the state
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  has has been undergoing,
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  recently, and why it's so important for a
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  role like yours to exist within one of
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  the largest managed care plans?
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  Yeah. The the state, our regulators, the Department
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  of Health Care Services, and they've incorporated into
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  their mission and vision the need to integrate
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  equity. Right? Quality and equity are are they
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  go hand in hand, right? We cannot have
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  quality
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  without equity, and that's critical
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  to understand, and we're so grateful that our
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  regulator acknowledges that and is now holding managed
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  care plans accountable for equity essentially.
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  And so what the regulator has done is
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  created on our boilerplate contract. There is an
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  entire section now for equity goals that we
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  must achieve. One of those is managed care
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  health plans actually must have NCQA
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  health equity accreditation
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  by the end of 2025.
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  So we're moving from this is a nice
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  to do, really great, we applaud you for
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  doing equity. We're now moving from that philanthropic
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  perspective
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  into this is required and you must do
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  this. And so I think that's a shift
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  as we look at the regulatory landscape,
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  recognizing now that we must do equity
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  to be able to drive our quality scores,
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  to be able to increase member satisfaction,
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  or looking at some of our health outcomes
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  and acknowledging that we must have health equity
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  and this equity focus on our work, right?
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  Driving program planning, looking at the data and
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  being able to understand the needs of our
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  populations
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  to drive towards some of those better or
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  optimal health outcomes. And so the state has
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  recognized this and now it's a it's a
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  requirement in California. And then also that mandated
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  role, the chief health equity officer role is
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  now mandated where we are required to have
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  somebody at the helm who is leading this
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  equity program.
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  Wow. Well, it's exciting changes and clearly a
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  lot of important work for you and your
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  team, in the year ahead. So we we
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  look forward to hearing more about it. But
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  before we go, Valerie, you have the ears
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  of a lot of other health plan leaders
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  from around the country.
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  Any other final words or or bits of
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  advice you'd like to offer,
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  to them?
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  One bit of advice I would say is
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  organizations are looking to begin to integrate equity
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  or begin to apply
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  whether it's this role or that equity lens
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  into the work that we do, is recognizing
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  that this is a huge undertaking, right? We're
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  up against systemic racism and implicit bias that
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  exists And so some organizations
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  are ready to do this work and some
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  are in, I would say the pre contemplation
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  phase, right, where we're thinking about how do
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  we structure this work and make it a
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  critical component to what we do. And so
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  it's just, I think important, I would acknowledge
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  how important this work is, but how significant
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  in terms of the administrative lift it is
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  to get this going.
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  And so I would applaud any organization that
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  is choosing to center equity into their operations,
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  into their program planning, into their strategic plans.
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  And there are tools available,
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  for organizations that are beginning to do this
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  work and just recognizing that this will, this
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  is a journey. This is not a one,
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  I often say it's not, we don't want
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  this to fizzle out. Right? It's not a
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  1, 3, 5 year hot topic that's gonna
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  fizzle out. This is a journey now, and
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  so we're all on board to be able
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  to support
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  this this new idea of integrating HealthEquity into
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  the day to day operations of health systems,
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  health plans, even hospitals. This is kind of
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  the the new charter where we're headed and
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  I would suspect that we're gonna see other
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  regulators across the state getting on board with
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  those health equity mandates as we've seen in
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  California.
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  Fantastic. Well, Valerie, thank you so much for
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  taking the time to be with us and
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  for sharing your insights with our listeners. We
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  really appreciate it.
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  Thank you. Thank you, Jacob, for having me
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  today.
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  Absolutely. And to our listeners, if you'd like
• 14:18
  to listen to more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare,
• 14:21
  you can visit beckershospitalreview.com.