Elevating Whole Health, Advancing Health Beyond Healthcare

Addressing the Social Drivers of Health

Supporting Community Health and Making a Difference in One Virginia Neighborhood

Strong communities are built by individuals who lift each other up every day. In Alexandria, Virginia, one community sets an example of how people can work together — and mobilize support resources — to overcome barriers to health. Neighborhood leaders have built strong relationships with community health advocates such as Patricia Moreno, an Elevance Health associate from our Virginia health plan affiliate. Patricia makes regular visits to communities in the area to educate people about where and how to apply for Medicaid benefits. She helps identify transportation options to care providers, improving access to healthcare, and she also finds connections to nutritious food options for those experiencing food insecurity. Patricia has built trust within the neighborhood: She speaks their language, understands their culture, and is welcoming and available to all community members whenever they need her guidance.

Patricia and the women in this community have created a tremendous partnership to find opportunities and empower each other.

Community Service Centers: Bringing Health Resources to the Heart of Neighborhoods

Strong communities lead to better health outcomes. Elevance Health is committed to advancing health equity and improving health outcomes by partnering with communities to provide easy access to healthcare resources and social support.

Our affiliated health plans are reaching people in the heart of their communities, with 37 brick-and-mortar community service centers located in 11 states and the District of Columbia to provide critical access to healthcare and social support.

These welcoming neighborhood spaces are staffed by dedicated associates trained in cultural awareness and competency. They offer an array of services to connect people to care, resources, and support, including:

• Information on accesssing Medicaid and Medicare benefits and services.
• Resources on housing, employment assistance, legal aid, and other programs such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP).
• Essentials such as free food and diapers.

Championing Access to Nutritious Foods

Access to nutritious food is an important part of maintaining the health of a community. People who cannot access or afford high-quality food are at increased risk for diet-related diseases such as diabetes and high blood pressure. In other words, food is medicine, and consistent access to nutritious food is an essential part of maintaining better health. We are helping communities connect people to nutritious food and address food insecurity through our Food As Medicine programs supported by the Elevance Health Foundation and our affiliated health plans.

Helping Communities Provide Nutritious Food to People in Need

This latest three-year partnership represents The Elevance Health Foundation’s sustained investment in supporting food bank and health care partnerships and addressing the intersection of food insecurity and health. The grant is part of the Foundation’s commitment of up to $30 million from 2021 through 2024 toward programs that advance health equity and value food as medicine.

Leading the Industry in Advancing Health Equity

Driven by our purpose to improve the health of humanity, and through our approach to health equity, we are working to make it possible for people, regardless of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, geographic or financial status to receive individualized care that demonstrates cultural humility. Through our personalized and intentional approach to health equity, Elevance Health is committed to overcoming barriers to better health in all that we do.

We became the first managed care organization in the nation to earn the full three-year Health Equity Accreditation from the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA) for all of our owned Medicaid health plans covering more than 90% of our Medicaid membership.

Health Equity Accreditation

NCQA Health Equity accreditation "focuses on the foundation of health equity work: building an internal culture that supports the organization’s external health equity work; collecting data that help the organization create and offer language services and provider networks mindful of individuals’ cultural and linguistic needs; and identifying opportunities to reduce health inequities and improve care."

Programs Making a Difference

An important facet of our health equity strategy is proactively designing care, services, and resources that support cultural humility and reduce inequities. We are advancing our strategy with the following programs:

• We enrolled an initial cohort of Medicaid leaders in the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health’s "Leadership Development to Advance Equity in Health Course," to equip them with the tools and resources they need to address health equity among populations vulnerable to systemic inequity.
• Care providers, whether they are in our networks or not, can access free courses through the mydiversepatients.com site and receive Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits on topics including new ways to think about healthcare and the promotion of equitable practices.
• Our high performing provider program, which incentivizes excellence through value-based contracts, will begin to address health equity by scores measuring performance in categories including race and ethnicity. Within these groups, performance will be measured on the successful management of conditions such as high blood pressure and diabetes, screening for colorectal cancer, and child and adolescent well care visits. Providers will also be assessed on screening and follow-up for depression and the social drivers of health, and for data sharing on race, ethnicity, and language.
• As part of our leadership in the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline services, Spanish-language call support services are now available around the clock to provide culturally competent crisis services to Spanish-speaking populations.
• Our Sydney Health App offers a Personalized Match feature that helps members find an in-network provider who meets their needs and preferences.

Joining the Global Effort

Elevance Health recognizes that it will take global action to address gaps in health and we are proud to be an initial signatory to the World Economic Forum’s Global Health Equity Network "Zero Health Gaps Pledge." This pledge is the world’s first global, multi-sector health equity initiative, and it includes 10 commitments we and other signatories have made to advance health equity across our core operations, strategies, and investments.