Strengthening, simplifying health is at the core of Home State

Home State Health Plan’s CEO Shannon Bagley sees her role as building and strengthening partnerships, with providers, Medicaid insurance enrollees and the communities where they live. The Centene Corporation subsidiary, one of three MO HealthNet managed care organizations in the state, provides services to 75,000 children and families in 54 counties in Missouri. Centene also has operations in 22 states. It began operations in 2012. 

“We help provide benefits around medical services, vision, behavioral health; dental as well as transportation,” Bagley said. 

Home State’s primary goal is to improve access to health care and simplify the experience, Bagley said, by partnering with enrollees to improve their health through care that is both compassionate and coordinated. Another important point, Bagley said, is that health care has to operate locally. 

“It truly is hiring local folks from the communities we serve and interfacing with our members in the community where they reside and really working with the providers and the advocates who are on the frontline every day,” she said. 

Together and collectively, Bagley said they design programs to extend Home State’s reach and engagement of the people who need it the most. 

The three-year-old company has developed a number of successful programs for its members, to take an active role in their wellness, removing barriers to service access and rewarding enrollees for a job well done. CentAccount is one such member program that started in another state and is a benefit for Missouri enrollees. 

“Through CentAccount, members can earn dollar rewards for staying up to date on preventative care services, such as attending and making sure the members are having their annual adult checkups; their well child visits, immunizations for children and conducting different health risk screenings,” Bagley explained. “So, when members are making healthy choices by staying up to date on preventative care, they earn dollar rewards that accumulate on a reward card and these dollars can be used a local retail stores for medical related items, such as allergy and cough medicine, thermometers, baby foods, as well as formulas.” 

Providing a member concierge program and transportation are other tactics to remove challenges that can hinder Home State members from getting needed health services. 

“Members that have a difficult time being able to really find time to make a PCP appointment or primary care appointment, or maybe don’t know exactly who to call  — any member that calls us that we can help out, we provide real-time assistance with primary care appointment-setting,” Bagley said. “We will reach out to their provider and try to set up an appointment and at the same time, arrange transportation.” 

Because some of its members were having a hard time taking advantage of same-day appointments, Home State also removed its 72-hour waiting period for transportation for certain services. 

“Today we provide same-day transportation to OBGYN visits as well as any primary care physician office visits,” Bagley added. 

It’s all about simplifying the experience. 

For members in St. Louis and in Kansas City, simplifying the experience may include home doctor visits. 

“We have pediatricians on staff as well as other internal medicine physicians that visit with our members that are higher risk and may have a harder time getting to a primary care physician, we actually deploy these physicians to their home” Bagley said. “Members have really responded well to that. They appreciate the in-home visits and the additional education that transpires when a physician has some time to spend with you and your family about possible a chronic condition, or about a situation that an individual may face.” 

High rates of neonatal intensive care unit babies and very low birth weights in the state prompted Home State to implement a Start Smart for Your Baby program. 

“This is really a collective, peer-management team of individuals – the programs, the outreach and the education are designed to extend the gestational period and to reduce the risk of pregnancy,” Bagley said. “Through our whole-person, integrated case management program, we work very quickly to identify when women are pregnant; we enroll them with our nurses who develop a care plan.” Home State can also deploy resources to the house, Bagley said, to ensure that pregnancies are going as intended. 

“And we continually do follow-up throughout the program; throughout their pregnancy…and in the last two years, we were able to reduce NICU rates by over 15 percent,” Bagley said. “And we have reduced very low birth rate babies by over 30 percent.” 

Bagley said Home State’s enrolled membership has increased significantly within the Missouri counties it serves. 

“Our membership over the last two-and-a-half years has really increased; it has increased over 48 percent,” Bagley said, “at the same time, our provider network – our network of physicians who we are contracted with across the state, has grown 40 percent to over 14,000 primary care physicians and specialists.” 

An open enrollment period is underway until mid-June, where MO HealthNet members can select an insurance plan for the next year.

For more information, visit http://www.homestatehealth.com.