Back in Focus: Post-pandemic strategies for health related social needs

A Humana and Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) joint research study report details how views of healthcare leaders have been shaped by COVID-19, and opportunities and challenges related to screening for health-related social needs.

To continue addressing social needs while mitigating risk of provider burnout, organizations can consider:

• Shifting responsibility of screening and enabling clinical and nonclinical staff;
• Adopting easy, automated, and trackable tools and workflows;
• Increased data standardization and automation of sharing with appropriate partners.

Providers increasingly acknowledge a responsibility to screen for and address social needs, with a majority conducting some form of screening and referring screened patients to a community, clinic, or health plan resource to help address those needs.

To enable this work, respondents are looking for ease of implementation and clarity on the business value driver of HRSN/SDoH work; however, lack of ease and/or automation in their systems slow workflows down and do not provide enough information for tracking success/ return on investment (ROI).