Three best practices to cultivate healthier, thriving communities

Managed care organizations are no strangers to alarming statistics about barriers to healthcare access. Nevertheless, the numbers are still astounding when laid out next to each other—especially for those residing in the rural United States.

These alarming barriers to access don’t even account for the cost of taking time off of work for some, the cost of childcare for others, transportation for those who don’t have a car or copays for wellness visits.

Labcorp frequently partners with health plans to cultivate healthier, thriving communities, meet HEDIS measures, increase Star Ratings and target gaps in care. With our experience, we’ve identified three best practices to achieve these goals:

1.) Leveraging data to provide good outcomes and experiences

Lab testing drives 70% of clinical decisions, but only 2%-3% of healthcare costs. That makes it a key component in creating sustainable, efficient access and care for all. We use the data from 50% of the U.S population—as well as the data that health plans provide us—to get a clear picture of healthcare gaps and opportunities so we can work together to form solutions. 

Partnering with CHAS Health to increase A1C testing by 50%+[1]

Labcorp partnered with CHAS Health in Washington state to increase at-home A1C testing in an FQHC setting. CHAS Health serves over 111,000 Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) patients, including over 8,000 patients with diabetes, with many of those patients facing geographic, transportation, physical mobility, mental health and childcare challenges in getting to a clinic to receive the proper care.

To address and define targeted opportunities for gaps in care programs, Labcorp often uses our prebuilt, lab-based population health analytics as a tool to define targeted opportunities for gaps in care programs. Using these tools, Labcorp summarized all CHAS Health patients with an in- or out-of-network A1C test, which is impactful since CHAS Health all use the same reference range.

CHAS Health wanted to target patients with a care gap in testing—namely, prediabetic patients and those who could use assistance managing their existing diabetes. To identify patients with a care gap, they planned to focus on those with an A1C range over 9. 

CHAS Health didn’t have the time, staff or human resources to package and ship testing kits to those patients but did have financial resources to support a gaps in care program to improve member health. They wanted a program encouraging providers to order A1C home-testing kits for their patients seamlessly from their EMR, with Labcorp fulfilling and shipping the orders.

After members completed the kit, they sent it directly to Labcorp who automatically uploaded the results into the patient’s EMR for the provider and CHAS Health to review, eliminating all manual entry. 

Labcorp also provided CHAS Health tracking information so they could see who had completed the kit and who chose not to participate. CHAS then outreached to those who did not send a kit back as a reminder.

After the results came in, CHAS Health supported their members with comprehensive video triage and telehealth programs. The video triage enabled nurses to assess over 250 patients who called in with acute symptoms.

[1] For the years 2021 and 2022.

2.) Collaborating locally with stakeholders

Working with local health systems and faith-based organizations to fight prostate cancer 

We recognize that every community is unique with their own set of strengths and challenges, which is why we take a tailored approach when working with various organizations. For instance, Labcorp worked with First Presbyterian Church, a faith-based organization in Jamaica, Queens, New York with strong community ties - and partnered with health systems Weill Cornell Medicine and New York Presbyterian Hospital to raise awareness for prostate cancer. Participation and engagement at local events can be challenging for health plans because of general community mistrust in the medical system; partnering with other trusted community organizations for events can greatly increase turnout.

Events like the one hosted in Queens provide opportunities for early detection by enabling access especially for underserved communities. For example, even if men in the community missed their regular checkup, they could come to this event and get screened for prostate cancer. Timely screening is especially important for Black men who are 1.74 times more likely to be diagnosed with prostate cancer. However, it is very treatable when detected early.

Because of the high local engagement with the event, the health system has also received grants to support tests that are made available for the community at no cost.

2024 was the 19th year of the event, and many improvements have been made along the way. By doing annual outreaches, you can learn lessons each year to improve efficiencies like logistics, flow or recruitment for the following year. When the church led the recruitment efforts, turnout skyrocketed. Often, people want a face they’re familiar with and/or who share their same religious values to receive health messaging. The annual event, which enables community members to receive health resources, talk to health vendors and get screened for prostate cancer, consistently has seen more than 300 men and their families attend.

3.) Providing flexibility through personalized engagement to increase access 

Representation and customization matter: Understanding cultural needs to drive adoption  

It’s also key to think about a multi-cultural approach to your program that considers the needs of different demographics such as race and ethnicity, sexuality and disability, among others. Just as people are more receptive to receiving health messaging to come from someone who shares their values, others want someone who looks and speaks like them to deliver their health messaging and in turn are more willing to take action with their health concerns.

Recognizing and valuing these needs, we intentionally collaborate with culturally competent & diverse providers and strive to match the right partner with the right event to increase participation.

We also make sure there’s signage in different languages in areas where there’s a large percentage of people who don’t speak English as their first language. In New York City, for example, there are nine different Chinatowns; in such locations it’s important to have employees who reflect the community and to display signage in Cantonese and Mandarin, as well as English.

Geographic access via physical infrastructure and/or mobile units

Throughout the country, we have over 2,000 patient service centers, including approximately 400 Labcorp locations at Walgreens. We’re constantly thinking about how to get access to different patients geographically to mitigate the grim barriers to access that we presented above.

Many times, people don’t seek preventive care because they have to take time away from work to accommodate rigid provider or patient service center hours. In Long Island, New York, we helped coordinate care for 80 men to do select weekend hours at one of our patient service centers to get screened for prostate cancer.

Targeted marketing increased engagement 20-fold and saved $408,000

The best programs and events are only as successful as the number of patients who actually participate. For example, the Virginia Department of Health (VDH) approached Labcorp to partner in getting more patients with prediabetes to enroll in their evidence-based, CDC-backed National Diabetes Prevention Program (NDPP) since 1 in 3 Virginians were living with prediabetes.

Our thought leaders shared these real-life examples at AHIP 2024: