INTERVIEW
Insuring the Highest Health of Minnesotans Lucas Nesse, President and CEO Minnesota Council of Health Plans What are some of the most unexpected things you have encountered since joining the Council?
What are some of the ways the Council is a resource for consumers?
The Council is a resource for consumers in a variety of ways, including helping Minnesotans gain entry into the health care system, finding the best providers for their specific situation, and ensuring coordinating of care overall. Efforts can also include support for food security, housing, education, and transportation to appointments. You have been working with issues around reinsurance – please tell us about these efforts.
Reinsurance was first considered on the federal level as a necessary tool for market stability under the Affordable Care Act. When that fell through at the federal level, the market was unstable and more costly. Minnesota stepped up with our own proposal and it has performed as advertised — bringing much needed stability and more affordable premiums, 20% lower on
8
MARCH 2021 MINNESOTA PHYSICIAN
Extending reinsurance is a top priority, and so is a proper permanent expansion of telehealth. Telehealth utilization during the pandemic was a success story thanks to the close coordination that made it work for Minnesotans. The question remains about where it will level off, but the future clearly will have higher utilization of telehealth. That is a good thing because it will support better access and it has the potential to bring more efficiency to care models, as well. What are some of the ways the Council is addressing the topic of health care equity?
“...”
Extending reinsurance is a top priority
“...”
Obviously, the COVID-19 pandemic was a headwind that no one saw coming and I gained the experience of working with the plans to quickly adapt and support their members. The Council has always worked collaboratively to make health care affordable and accessible for Minnesotans, but the exponential growth of telehealth has required particularly close coordination to support continued access to care. The pandemic has also highlighted how important the additional services that the nonprofit health plans provide are for optimal health. For example, there’s been a renewed focus on community giving and our foundations have provided significant financial assistance related to addressing social isolation, mental health, food insecurity, domestic abuse as well as supporting broad availability of personal protective equipment. Organizations receiving financial and other support from health plans include Second Harvest Heartland, Greater Twin Cities United Way, People Serving People, YMCA of the Greater Twin Cities, and many others.
What non-COVID legislative issues are you working on this session.
average, to Minnesota’s individual market. It does so by directly paying for a portion of high-cost claims. We are in year four of a five-year federal waiver and right now we are seeing bipartisan support to extend the program for a fifth year. Reinsurance has been so successful that it should be considered as part of a longer-term solution. Please tell us about your work related to COVID-19.
The health of Minnesotans is the highest priority of the nonprofit plans we represent, and they stepped up immediately for their members. In addition to community giving efforts, health plans took voluntary actions very early on that including waiving any cost sharing for testing and in-patient treatment, broad expansion of telehealth services, relaxed outof-network requirements, and removal of prior authorization procedures. We also work closely with state officials to continuously assess if there are additional steps that can be taken to ensure timely and barrier-free access for Minnesotans, including support for the vaccination effort.
There is a lot of great work going on in Minnesota right now on health equity, but obviously more needs to be done. One of the biggest challenges is driving the close coordination necessary to make real progress. Health plans recently made their senior leaders available to create a Health Equity Committee focused on coordinating a focused effort. As an example of our intentions, at only our second meeting, we were able to unite around a recommendation to update the Universal Initial Credentialing Application Form to include voluntary disclosure of race, ethnicity and language so that information is available to support health equity efforts by identifying diverse mental health providers. That quick and substantial action is just one of many impactful steps we will be advancing to improve health equity in Minnesota. How does the public health work you are doing with community health groups around Minnesota fit in with your health care equity initiatives?
Our plans are engaging with a wide variety of public health initiatives, ranging from mental health to physical activity to environmental health initiatives. Every 5 years, our plans come together to set priority areas for community engagement after reviewing state and local health assessments and outline those goals and partnerships in a Collaboration Plan. Through these initiatives, our plans address health equity in three key ways:
