Skip to main content

Medicare Managed Care Company Pilots Social Interaction Platform to Combat Loneliness, Promote Wellness Remotely

Analysis  |  By Scott Mace  
   August 25, 2021

Centene Corporation sees services delivered by TV and mobile services aligning with its social determinants of health initiatives.

With the majority of American seniors wanting to stay in their homes and age in place, innovation continues to expand the kinds of engagement, incorporating social determinants of health, which can keep those populations thriving, even during the pandemic.

Populations who are challenged by living alone, struggle with mobility, seldom venture away from home, and struggle with chronic loneliness are beginning to see manifestations of this innovation. Now, a Medicaid managed care company is piloting technology from Uniper Care Technologies to engage seniors in a new way.

"As a managed care company, we are always trying to find innovations that are of interest to our membership that have positive outcomes on health," says Laura Chaise, vice president of long-term services and supports and Medicare-Medicaid plans at Centene Corporation, based in St. Louis.

A key to connecting and engaging these seniors is to make the technology seamless. Participating providers install the Uniper Care platform in seniors' TV sets or mobile devices, creating an overlay for two-way communication via the internet via a cellular router provided to seniors at no cost to themselves.

This communications overlay delivers a variety of engagement services, ranging from yoga classes to virtual senior centers during the pandemic, says Avi Price, chief operating officer and company co-founder at Uniper Care Technologies.

These services are delivered by various community-based organizations and governmental organizations, sharing best practices and customized content, connecting seniors with live interactive cultural and wellness programming, including content provided by Uniper Care itself.

In doing so, the offering is intended to tackle social isolation, loneliness and depression, conditions known to lead to a host of medical problems.

"This type of work is high on our list, going back to our broader social determinants strategies," Chaise says. "There are other parallel initiatives around food and security around housing, employment, and transportation."

Uniper Care's offerings meet the objectives of millions of dollars set aside in the American Rescue Plan for Older Americans Act to apply technology to community-based services for seniors.

There are currently 75 Centene members using Uniper Care in the company's initial pilot. Centene has about 360,000 members across 15 states, Chaise says. For dually-eligible individuals, Centene has more than  
1 million dually-eligible individuals across multiple products, she adds.

"Some of those folks are with us just for Medicaid, some of them are with us just for Medicare, and some are with us for both," Chaise says.

Another aspect of the Uniper Care platform is its ability to integrate internet-based telehealth services, delivered to TVs, overlaying regular TV programming via the TV's HDMI interface.

"Due to the pandemic, the willingness to use telehealth has skyrocketed," Chaise says. At present, Centene is not using the telehealth provided by Uniper through its platform. "I do think it is a nice feature we might explore in the future," she adds.

Currently, Centene has a number of other national telehealth initiatives, around physical health, behavioral health, and other health aspects, Chaise says.

"Uniper has a very specific kind of population focus," Chaise says. "While we have other tools that are much more broadly used and available, I could see a scenario if we had a cohort of older adults who were very comfortable using [telehealth], because that's what they use for fitness classes or socialization, or whatever it is, to be able to leverage a technology that they're already comfortable with, for other purposes. But it would be premature for us to explore that at this time."

Centene already provides an array of benefits for senior members going beyond typical medical services, Chaise says.

"We are already providing people with home-delivered meals, personal attendant services, transportation, with the ability to go to a day center," she says.

"That's part of the reason why we were interested in Uniper, is understanding how this could fit within that portfolio of options, depending on different people's needs and willingness, interest to leave the home, versus being in the home, and being able to connect with people remotely," she says.

During the pandemic, "a lot of day centers had to close," Chaise says. "This has been a unique time to look at technologies like Uniper, and to understand what role they play in the long term."

In addition, numerous day centers have, because of the pandemic, taken the opportunity to diversity their offerings and find ways of staying connected with seniors who are no longer able to come to the centers, she says.

"There are certain things about going to a day center that are difficult to replicate remotely, like physically seeing your friends, playing cards, seeing a nurse or a healthcare professional on site or a social worker or counselor," Chaise says. "It's not the same as having a hot meal, right? It’s not the same. But I do think it could be part of a broader array of options for older adults, who are trying to stay active and trying to stay connected."

One other advantage of the extensible Uniper Care platform is the ability for seniors to gather in open rooms and peer-led groups without intermediaries in the middle, Price says.

Other large U.S. organizations leveraging the Uniper Care platform include managed care organizations in Florida, community-based organizations such as Jewish human service agencies, and area agencies on aging in Miami, Broward, Tampa, and Sarasota areas, Price says.

Content providers include Johns Hopkins Medicine and the Alzheimer's Association, he adds.

“Part of the reason why we were interested in Uniper, is understanding how this could fit within that portfolio of options, depending on different people's needs and willingness, interest to leave the home, versus being in the home, and being able to connect with people remotely.”

Scott Mace is a contributing writer for HealthLeaders.

Photo credit: Photo courtesy of Centene Corporation


KEY TAKEAWAYS

With the COVID-19 pandemic closing day centers, Centene wanted its members to remain engaged socially.

Offerings range from loneliness-combatting peer groups to curated wellness content by Johns Hopkins and Alzheimer's association.


Get the latest on healthcare leadership in your inbox.