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This is Gracelyn Keller with the Becker's healthcare
podcast, and we are live at the 2024
pair issues round table.
I'm joined now by Abdu Ba, who is
the senior vice president medical management and chief
health equity officer at EmblemHealth.
Abdu, thanks for being here. Would love to
start off by having you introduce yourself and
tell us a little bit more about your
role.
Thank you. Thank first of all, thank you
for having me. So as you mentioned, my
name is Abduba.
I lead our population health and medical management
area at EmblemHealth.
EmblemHealth is a New York based health plan
that serves roughly about 3,000,000 lives, And we
have members in the commercial Medicare and Medicaid
space
and mostly located in the tri state metro
New York area.
Wonderful. Well, thank you for taking the time
today. And let's start off talking about
goals and growth for the rest of the
year. So from improving member experience and expanding
value based care to controlling costs,
pay executives have ambitious growth goals for the
rest of the year and as we look
into the year ahead. So right now, what
is your top priority, and how are you
planning to get there?
I think that's a great question. I think
number 1, it's about controlling and managing ongoing
health care costs.
As you think about health care costs coming
out of COVID, we're still seeing an increase
in cost. In in addition to it, member
experience and making sure that the members that
we do have have a excellent experience starting
with customer service, but also making sure that
they're getting the services and the care that
they need to be able to manage their
health care needs.
Absolutely. And at an industry level,
how would you describe the biggest barriers to
effectively serving and engaging members? And what opportunities
do you see for large scale improvements, and
how are you applying that to your current
strategies?
Yeah. I think there's a 2 tier answer.
I think part 1 is engagement and being
able to reach members
the way the members wanna be reached. And
as we think about different engagement strategies and
the ability to reach a member is the
number one barrier today. And as we think
about advancement in technology, such as using AI
and other tools, and being able to use
digital channels will certainly help with engaging a
broader population.
And changing pace slightly to growing leaders.
Keeping pace in today's dynamic health care landscape
is challenging. So what is a piece of
advice you'd share with peer leaders to grow
their businesses and keep members top of mind?
I think it's about building programs and solutions
that serves your members' need, understanding your population,
understanding the population, the community that you serve,
and building programs, initiatives that,
are tailored to that population need. Right? So
if you have a a population that's high
on diabetes,
then you wanna make sure that you have,
initiatives and program that are for diabetic members.
Also, I think it's important
to be innovative and creative as you think
about solving
SDOH and other social barriers, which are the
invisible barriers today that prevents member from getting
the care that they need.
Well, Abdu, thank you for joining me today
on the Becker's healthcare podcast and sharing these
insights. Again, we are live at the 2024
payer issues roundtable.
Thank you.