Greater interest from health plans in addressing social determinants (or at least tap into the hype around the term) has led leading industry group AHIP to launch a new initiative to focus on collaboration around the social factors that affect health.
The program, dubbed Project Link, is meant to bring together industry players across different markets and geographies to work on social issues and barriers to care like housing, healthy eating and transportation.
Part of the goal of the initiative is establishing business rationales to support investment in social determinants, collaborating on lobbying for policy changes that may make it easier to focus on social issues and sharing examples and case studies of successful programs.
“We all have a responsibility to create social and physical environments that promote better health for all Americans,” AHIP President and CEO Matt Eyles said in a statement.
“Project Link solves for this disconnect, bringing us together with a collective vision for enhancing quality of life, improve community health and reduce long term costs.”
AHIP isn’t the only insurance industry group that has made addressing social determinants a priority. Last year, the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association launched the Blue Cross Blue Shield Institute to focus on the social and environmental factors that address health.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
The organization has embarked on partnerships with companies like Lyft, CVS Health and Solera Health to address barriers to care like transportation, food insecurity and access to addiction and substance abuse resources.
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