Tivity Health® and the Healthcare Leadership Council (HLC) recently published The Value of Care Coordination for Medicare Advantage Enrollees that examines data from Tivity Health’s Senior Healthy Living Survey (SHLS) by SilverSneakers®.
This edition of SHLS was conducted in March and April 2022 among a national sample of 601 adults age 65+ enrolled in a Medicare Advantage (MA) plan to better understand patients’ lived experience with care coordination. HLC represents a coalition of chief executives from all disciplines in healthcare and has provided leadership by convening sessions on health equity, CMS policy and topics such as care coordination.
The Senior Healthy Living Survey (SHLS)
Conducted by global intelligence company Morning Consult, the SHLS includes a fixed set of questions on healthy behaviors along with a dynamic set of questions that cover timely topics. The mission of the SHLS is to serve as a primary voice of seniors nationwide in areas representing all aspects of their lives related to healthy aging.
What is Care Coordination?
Care coordination means that there is communication between a patient’s primary care physician (PCP) and any specialists the patient may see as well as coordination with community services and supports. For example, through care coordination the patient’s PCP gets information on the patient’s specialists visits and shares the results of these visits with the patient.
Another example would be that the patient’s health plan or doctor helps find transportation for that patient to get to a medical appointment.
Specific findings from the White Paper include:
- Most seniors have some idea of who to contact about care coordination, but those in rural communities are least sure
- Even with the option for care coordination, rural seniors have disproportionately limited access to a doctor within 10 miles of their home or the ability to use telehealth as an alternative service
- There is an indication that minority seniors and those with an income under $25,000 who have not experienced care coordination also experience the lowest levels of access to quality healthcare
Click here to read The Value of Care Coordination for Medicare Advantage Enrollees.
