An Important Conversation to Have this Holiday Season

The holiday season is a time for coming together with the ones we love. The joy of creating new memories and reliving old ones strengthens the connections that bind us together as friends and family. Sure, there are gifts involved, but the holidays are much more than that. For young children, they’re a chance to experience how fulfilling generosity can be. For adults, the holidays are an opportunity for meaningful conversations – perhaps conversations that we’ve been putting off all year.?

One important conversation that a lot of us avoid is about aging and our wishes for ourselves and our loved ones. These topics might seem to rub against the cheerful memories so many of us associate with this time of year. But in fact, I think they actually complement the spirit of the holiday season. Just before the coldest months of the year arrive, we’re given opportunities to celebrate, rather than dwell on, the end of the seasonal cycle of life. In my own cultural tradition, Diwali – the festival of lights, which was celebrated in November this year – honors light’s spiritual triumph over darkness.??

In that same spirit, what if we all recalibrated our perceptions of what it means to talk about aging and our plans – and needs – for our elder years? What if we envisioned these conversations as celebrations of next steps rather than gloomy acknowledgements of inevitable endings? True joy to me is taking a moment to pause with the people I love and taking stock of the resources they have at hand; making plans for a healthy and fulfilling year ahead; and being honest and open about the challenges to come, so we can work through them together.?

As a medical director at Blue Cross NC, I’m proud to be part of a company that understands families don’t have to have this dialogue alone. That’s why we’re finding our own ways to facilitate important conversations – with members, providers, and community partners – focused on driving a holistic approach to supporting older North Carolinians.?

?Benefit Design and Support for the Whole Person??

Helping people live their healthiest, most fulfilling lives isn’t just about getting them clinical care. Good health depends on a person’s ability to address fundamental drivers of health and meet mental health needs. Often this becomes more challenging as people get older and their health care needs grow more complex. That’s why Blue Cross NC takes a holistic approach to serving our members, through benefits and value-added services that promote healthy aging and exercise; provide healthy meals following a hospital discharge; address social isolation and transportation challenges; and other social and environmental factors that affect overall well-being.?

Coordinating whole-person care goes beyond benefit design. As I wrote earlier in the year, we’re using predictive analytics to enhance our care managers’ capabilities to deliver highly-personalized service to our members. We’ve designed our own state-of-the-art AI tools to recognize patterns in claims and clinical data that may indicate changes in well-being, and which may be signals that a serious health event is on the horizon. It also draws from census data measuring social vulnerability; care management teams can leverage this information to stage highly targeted, timely, and strategic care, which makes more effective use of resources, lowers costs, and drives better health outcomes … sometimes in unpredictable ways.?

We also understand the importance of supporting those who support. That’s why we offer an array of caregiver benefits for our?BlueMedicare Advantage? members at no additional cost.?

But at this time of year, I find myself reflecting in particular on our work to strengthen local support networks, helping older North Carolinians tap into vital resources in the communities where they live.?

The Importance of Community Connection??

Blue Cross NC’s robust community engagement strategy reflects the reality that conversations around the needs of seniors should unfold not just in households and provider offices, but in the community spaces and worship centers where we all gather.?

We’ve reconceived our Blue Cross Centers in Charlotte, Raleigh, and Boone (with more on the horizon) to be spaces where Blue Cross NC can be a more engaged partner in the community … where non-profit organizations can host meetings and activities free of charge, and where we can offer programs and events for the benefit of the community, not just our members. To help address the challenge of social isolation, these centers have begun hosting monthly senior bingo nights. These very popular game nights are just one small part of our Medicare team’s larger initiative to develop programs that help North Carolinians feel more connected.?

By getting out and into the communities we serve, Blue Cross NC continues to generate new opportunities to team with local organizations that serve older North Carolinians. In Watauga County, the Hunger and Health Coalition provides food, prescription medicine, and even firewood for households that need help heating their home in the winter. The organization embraces a “food is medicine” approach, providing medically tailored food packages to clients with hypertension, diabetes, heart disease, and other chronic conditions.???

We estimate that one out of three of our Medicare members faces food insecurity. Poor nutrition at any age leads to chronic conditions that undermine health and quality of life, but seniors have unique dietary needs and are especially vulnerable to the health consequences of poor nutrition (diabetes, congestive heart failure, gum disease, and more). Through an innovative pilot program, we now provide capitated payments to the Hunger and Health Coalition for our members that they serve. This program benefits members in the region across all our lines of business, including Medicare. Collaborations like this one will go a long way toward helping North Carolinians avoid costly and preventable health problems.??

Appropriately, this pilot program arose out of a conversation during Blue Cross NC’s Extra Miles Tour. Company leaders had met with the Hunger and Health Coalition when our Extra Miles Tour visited North Carolina’s High Country region. That initial conversation sparked an ongoing dialogue – brainstorming turned to planning, and planning turned to action.???

Important Conversations Don’t Have to Darken the Holiday Mood??

We’re in the holiday season at the cusp of a new year. There are many reasons why now is the time to make plans to support the ones we love who are older than 65. These are conversations that every family needs to have. They’re also conversations that we need to be having at the community level as well. According to the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS),?North Carolina’s population is growing? older?– and quickly. In 2020, the vast majority of our counties had more residents over 60 than under 18. By 2031, there will be more people 65 and older than children 0-17.?

?What’s happening in North Carolina is happening across the country. In the years following World War II, the United States experienced the Baby Boom. Today, those Boomer children have grown and the nation is, in the words of the Population Reference Bureau, at the onset of an “Elderly Boom.” At the same time, our health care system is already strained and fragmented, making it difficult for individuals and families to find the resources they need.??

Here’s the crucial thing: By helping ourselves, loved ones, and community members take proactive steps now instead of kicking the can down the road, we can prevent many of the crisis situations that put a strain on families and stress community resources. What greater gift could we give (or receive) this holiday season??

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