By Geralyn Magan
A new case study explores a collaboration between an affordable senior housing community and a nonprofit Medicaid health plan in California.
A new case study from the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston details a collaboration between Mount Rubidoux Manor, a 188-unit affordable senior housing community in Riverside, CA, and Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP), a nonprofit Medicaid health plan serving about 1.2 million members in Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Mount Rubidoux Manor is managed by HumanGood, a LeadingAge member based in Pleasanton, CA.
Mount Rubidoux Manor and IEHP launched their collaboration in March 2019, according to A Housing and Health Collaboration: Mount Rubidoux Manor and Inland Empire Health Plan. The program’s central component is an IEHP health navigator who works on-site at Mount Rubidoux Manor 3 days per week.
The navigator’s main role is to provide case management services, help residents understand and access their health benefits, and resolve any barriers standing in the way of that understanding and access. IEHP combines this one-on-one interaction with group programming to help residents address factors within their environment—including social isolation and depression—that may be impacting their health.
The health navigator engages with all residents in the building, whether or not they are IEHP plan members. Each participating IEHP plan member receives a health appraisal to help identify issues that could be affecting the member’s health, and to connect individuals with resources to help address problems or fill gaps.
When interacting with non-members, the health navigator answers questions to the best of her ability and then connects residents to their health provider or health plan, if they have one. Group activities coordinated by IEHP and its partners are open to all residents.
CASE STUDY ELEMENTS
The LTSS Center case study explores:
- The role of the health navigator at Mount Rubidoux Manor.
- How the health navigator and the housing community’s resident service coordinator collaborate with one another.
- How the health navigator/service coordinator team interacts with the housing community’s management team.
- The programming that IEHP implements at the housing community.
- The role that undergraduate social work students play in the health navigator program.
- How the pandemic has changed program implementation.
- Interventions that have helped the navigator and service coordinator address challenging issues involving residents.
- Ways in which IEHP and Mount Rubidoux Manor hope to improve their collaboration and add elements to the health navigator program.
FROM SKEPTICISM TO ACCEPTANCE
Residents of Mount Rubidoux Manor were initially confused and skeptical when the health navigator first arrived at their housing community, according to the case study. Some residents suspected the health navigator’s primary mission at the housing community was to convince them to switch their health plan membership to IEHP. But now, both the resident service coordinator and the health navigator believe residents have accepted the program.
These positive impressions have been backed up by IEHP’s preliminary assessment of the program’s first 13 months. IEHP documented general improvement in how residents rated their physical, mental, and social health from the 3rd to the 12th month of program implementation. In addition, approximately 40% of residents participated in a wide range of programming that IEHP coordinated at the housing community.
“The health navigator sees many advantages to being stationed at the housing community,” concludes case study author Alisha Sanders. “Being able to see residents regularly allows her to build closer connections with plan members/residents. This on-site presence also allows the health navigator to follow up with individuals more easily. She can ask residents questions when she sees them in the hall, follow up with them on tasks they are supposed to complete, or update them on issues she is helping them resolve.”
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about the collaboration between Mount Rubidoux Manor and IEHP, read the full case study.