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Speaker 0: This is Laura Diet with the Becker Health care podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Hill Martin Res, President and Chief Executive Officer of Uc care. Hillary is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today? Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to be here, Laura. Thank you so much for the invitation. Speaker 0: Now, I'm really looking forward to learning more about you and how you're thinking about growth and development at Uc care. But before we dive in, could you please introduce yourself, tell me a little bit more about uc care as well? Speaker 1: Yeah. Of course. Happy to do Laura. So I have been at Uc care since 20 10, but in the proud president and Ceo since 20 21. Uc care is a Minnesota based health plan serving individuals who get their coverage through government health program. So that includes Medicaid, Medicare and products for those who are dual eligible for Medicare Medicaid as well as Minnesota state based exchange marketplace. We don't offer employer based commercial coverage, all we do is government programs, and this allows us to be singular focused on the unique needs of the individuals we serve. For a profit plan, mission base where community plan and it's our forties anniversary this year, Laura, we are celebrating anniversary this summer. In fact. We were founded in 19 84 by a team of providers whose thought there must be a better way to serve individuals who are eligible for Medicaid. And they started in a single county and they strive to improve access to outcomes and equity for the, Medicaid members in this demonstration project. So while we started as a demonstration project, it's clearly been a very successful demonstration because we are still here 40 years later, now serving about 600000 members in every county in Minnesota as well as portions of Western Wisconsin. We are now the largest nonprofit government programs health center in Minnesota and in fact, the third largest in the country. And according to a recent Usa today, publication, we are the highest ranked health plan in the nation among plans of ever size as it relates to employee engagement and workplace culture. We are really proud of this. In fact. We call this our people powered. Speaker 0: That's amazing to hear. And you know, wow. What a great anniversary... 40 years this summer. That's a huge accomplishment and so exciting to hear about how you've continued to evolve over the years and serve the community better. Now from your perspective, what are some of the big trends and headwind that you're following right now? Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, it's a great question, Laura. You know, every business as you know, it's focusing on the role of Ai in the organization. Ai has the potential to be the biggest innovation to hit healthcare and frankly to hit any industry in years, probably in our lifetime. Ai creates incredible opportunities in areas such as predictive modeling and simplifying member experience, more efficient operations and so much more. But as you know, it also comes with risk. Ai can bring about unintended concepts such as introducing bias and discrimination into decisions, potentially ex the health disparities that already exist and of course, there can be privacy concerns and security concerns and even ethical and moral concerns. And of course, Ai introduces the possibility of regulatory and legal challenges. And as you know, the health industry has already seen some of both. The At Uc care, we have a team of people leading this work, which is oversee by a committee of our board to ensure it gets the highest level of over site. So as we build our Ai approach at Uc care, we are being very deliberate about introducing Ai in a way that it's aligned with our mission, and that directly benefit our members and provider. And we're ensuring that it aligns with our non nonprofit value in our strong workplace culture. We've also been unwavering in our commitment to using Ai in a way that enhances what makes the special and doesn't ever replace it. In other words, we'll ensure that we don't replace the human element of our service or the human element of the positive experience we create with our members. The human re element of the relationships we have with our partners or especially the human element of the thoughtful decision making that we make every single day. But we're also unwavering our commitment that any use of Ai will be responsible and ethical all the time. Every time without exception. And we're being just as deliberate, Laura about ensuring that we avoid the common tip pitfalls that can be associated with the use of Ai and help care. For example, let's talk for a moment about how Ai may support prior authorization process. Uc care already limits the use of Pa to only dose services that may be unsafe, unnecessary or redundant for members or those services that lack evidence based criteria or documented improvements. Our intent is always to minimize member disruption and provider burdens and never to delay access to needed care. So will limit the use of Ai and prior authorization to being a decision support tool to help ensure consistent application of medical necessity criteria, but it will not be used to deny cure. Any questions about whether care is necessary or appropriate you evaluate a any case by case basis by our clinical professional. Laurie you also asked about headwind, that Care and other organizations are facing. So in terms of the headwind, every organization, especially healthcare organizations that are experiencing the impact of the largest cybersecurity breach in the nation's history. Healthcare is a popular target for cyber criminals unfortunately and this recent breach reminded us of the vulnerabilities of our interconnected systems and processes and the need to be ever vigilant and staying ahead of cyber cybersecurity threats. It was also a reminder to have strong business continuity plan, callback connection it's not just solely depend on a single vendor for essential services. At Care, we're proud of the proactive steps we've taken over the years, to build business continuity programs and to safeguard our systems in our data and we'll continue to prioritize this work going forward. Speaker 0: Well, that's great to hear it. In such a good reminder of so many different factors that have an impact on how operations work in and can really, be thoughtful approach to, as you mentioned Ai as well as cybersecurity and some of the other risks that are are ahead of us. No. It's I'm wondering how are you thinking about growth for the future? What does that mean for you at uc care? Speaker 1: Yeah. I I appreciate that question, Lauren. This first talk generally about their business reasons that many organizations speak to grow. First, of course, as organizations grow against scale. Which allows them to operate more efficiently and effectively and contribute to their bottom line and girls for organizations can also lead to product diversification or geographic diversification, which allows organizations to have a broader portfolio of business signs that further supports the organizational health. When we think about growth at You care, we're not just thinking about the business value of growth, although those are of course important. But as a highly mission driven nonprofit community plans, our primary motivation for girls is to allow more individual, benefit from a unique programs and services that we offer to our health plan numbers. Let's talk about Medicaid, for example. To As I said earlier, we've been serving Minnesota eligible for Medicaid for 40 years. And we serve more Medicaid enroll in Minnesota that any other plan about 400000 minnesota. So we've developed, signed and innovated our Medicaid offerings over the decades, enabling us to serve our Medicaid members with an expertise that's based on years of with providers meeting organizations and government partners. To respond to their very localized needs. We like to say that we're the bridge between a complex Medicaid system and the communities we serve. So, Laura, when we talk about growth, we think it's equally important to talk about what we are not going to do as it is to talk about what we will do. First, we will never lose sight of the important work we do in Minnesota. We've been serving Minnesota for decades and that will never change. The growth efforts will not distract us from continuing to serve to partner to innovate in our current markets. Second, as we explored growth and including geographic expansion, we won't simply replicate what we do in Minnesota in new markets. We're proud of what we've accomplished in Minnesota. So what certainly will be elements of those capabilities that will form the foundation in new markets. But we're a community plan and that means we don't have an initial playbook. Even when we grow and we're eventually operating in multiples days we'll never have a national playbook because we customize our approach based on the specific needs of the communities in which we operate. As I said, we'll leverage what was learned in Minnesota, but we'll never come paste it into a new market. And also, Laura, we don't make assumptions about what local communities needs. When we talk about being a community based plan. It means that we learn about those needs, but asking communities about their experiences, we ask them about their challenges and their priorities, and then we c create solutions. With them to meet their. Finally, we will never let go of our culture, which as I said before, we call it our people power. People come to you care because they believe in our mission and then they stay because they see they feel the impact that they having on our members and our commute every single day. When I started at Uc care, Laura in 20 10 and We had we were much smaller. We now have 4 times more employees than we had in 20 10. And despite that tremendous growth, we've never lost sight of our mission for our values in our culture and we never will, even as we grow over the years. Speaker 0: That's amazing here. And you know, I really love the idea of continuing to build upon that culture and and really valuing the people within the organization and and seeing how they can drive success. And and 2, another thing that you said that stood out to me was the idea of personalization being able to really embrace any community that you're working in understand the intricacies and nuances and then customizing your approach in in way your, best being able to serve people of that community. I think that's so powerful in something broadly in health care. I hear more and more about on a regular basis. This is just having that type of personalization and customization, really really is beneficial and key. So that's great to hear is already baked into a part of who you are in in the mission of uc care before I wrap up here, I'm wondering, could you tell me about a project or initiative from the last year that's yielded the best results? Speaker 1: Yeah. Thank you for that question, Laura. There there's so many successes that I'm proud of as I reflect on the past year ranging from things like population health initiatives, that are moving the dial and addressing health disparities, the large technology implementations and so much more. But what I'd like to share with you today is the work we did in support of the Medicaid red process. As the largest Medicaid plan in Minnesota, we felt we had both an opportunity and a responsibility to ease the burden of this process on the members within in our state. And so our planning work started well below before the public's health emergency ended. So we had additional support and services ready to go on day 1. For example, We expanded an existing internal team that we have at U care that we called our Key coverage team. This team connected 1 on 1 with some of our highest risk members to help them complete their renewal application. We also partnered with a local navigator increase our capacity for this 1 on 1 assistant. And taken together, we were able to have more than 50000 member touch point related to the renewal process over the past year. We did additional things like c developing educational materials and partner of with Minnesota Permanent human services, and we educated members about renewal requirements using linguistic and culturally appropriate messages and approaches. We helped fund assistance program that providers and community agencies, and we sent them information about which of their patients, our members, they are impacted so they could provide personalized support from their perspective. For example, we offered some grants to help some providers have staff available to support renewal process and application questions where their patients came in for a doctor's appointment. And then we had a community wide marketing strategy that included targeted digital marketing as well as Tv ads featuring uc care employees helping people with fair renewal. The red process was uncharted territory for everyone involved. So it was important to be nimble and be ready to adapt continual change through Alta traffic. So we worked closely with our partners to adjust and evolve our model to best serve our members throughout what was a 12 month process in Minnesota. So as the process wraps up in Minnesota, we're still analyzing the total impact on member but we believe that you care exceeded both local and national projections in terms of the percentage of members that we retain. Mostly in a Medicaid program, but some in 1 of the products we offer through our states marketplace where as you know, monthly premiums are often offset by subsidies to make those products more affordable. We're still grateful for our strong partnership with a state to achieve these results as well as our partnerships with providers, counties and community organizations. And, of course, none of this would have been possible without the strength of the nearly 1700 extraordinary employees or for Uc care, which, as I said before we call our people power. Speaker 0: I love that, Hillary. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. This has been a fascinating discussion. I've learned a lot and really appreciate. The time that I've had with you today. Thank you so much, and I look forward to connecting to you again soon. Speaker 1: Thank you, Laura.