Addressing Social Determinants of Health in the Senior Population – #HITsm Chat Topic

We’re excited to share the topic and questions for this week’s #HITsm chat happening Friday, 7/15 at Noon ET (9 AM PT).  This week’s chat will be hosted by Dr. Melissa Urrea from @naviHealthPAC on the topic Addressing Social Determinants of Health in the Senior Population.

In this week’s #HITsm chat, naviHealth Executive Medical Director Dr. Melissa Urrea will take over the naviHealth Twitter account (@naviHealthPAC) to talk about “How to Address Social Determinants of Health in the Senior Population.” 

Social determinants of health (SDoH) can encompass many different aspects of life. Its impact on senior care has sparked some conversations around the future of the industry. But to make substantial changes to the way we care for seniors, a bigger conversation needs to happen among providers, payers and policy experts. 

The focus on SDoH, in general, is aimed at keeping patients healthier, more independent, and more functional. But it is impossible to improve health care outcomes if the needs of patients cannot be fully met due to things such as socioeconomic disparities, food insecurities, or not having access to transportation. 

As a board-certified family medicine physician, Dr. Urrea can attest that the funding and necessary tools to properly address SDoH have not been prioritized in the past, making it difficult to effectuate change. Now, with the growing focus on outcomes and value-based care, there is renewed energy toward funding solutions to address SDoH, with policy changes paving the way for positive change. 

For example, the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 amended the section on the Social Security Act to expand the types of supplemental benefits that may be offered by Medicare Advantage (MA) plans to chronically ill enrollees. The Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI) includes supplemental benefits that are not primarily health-related and may be offered non-uniformly to eligible chronically ill enrollees such as benefits for supplemental food, non-medically related transportation, pest control, indoor air quality equipment and services, social needs benefits (like marital counseling, family counseling, programs to address isolation and improve cognition), structural home modifications and more. 

This amendment was a huge step forward in addressing SDoH. But we still have a long way to go. Join us for this week’s #HITsm chat where we’ll be discussing the following topics.

Topics for this week’s #HITsm Chat:

T1: When you hear the term social determinants of health (SDoH), what do you specifically imagine? #SDoH #HITsm

T2: What are the SDoH that most impact the senior population? #SDoH #HITsm

T3: What is the potential role of future healthcare policies regarding SDoH? #SDoH #HITsm #HealthPolicy

T4: What social determinants are most impacted by policy changes? #SDoH #HITsm #HealthPolicy

T5: Where are we missing the mark? What further changes are needed to address SDoH and health equity? #SDoH #HITsm

Bonus: How can health systems engage their communities to address SDOH on a local scale? #SDoH #HITsm

Upcoming #HITsm Chat Schedule

7/22 – Access to Care and Digital Health/Health IT
Hosted by Derek Streat (@dexcare)

We look forward to learning from the #HITsm community! As always, let us know if you’d like to host a future #HITsm chat or if you know someone you think we should invite to host.

If you’re searching for the latest #HITsm chat, you can always find the latest #HITsm chat and schedule of chats here.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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