Episode 11 - "Health Insurance Providers Take Action on Housing" w/ America's Health Insurance Plans

Opportunity Starts at Home

Health insurance providers increasingly understand that good housing is good health. To more effectively address health conditions, insurance providers across the country are developing and implementing new ways to improve access to safe, decent, affordable housing for the people they serve. In this episode, we talk to Rhys Jones and Rashi Venkataraman with America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP). AHIP is the largest advocacy organization representing health insurers nationwide. AHIP has about 1,300 member companies that sell health insurance to over 200 million Americans. Rhys Jones is the Vice President of Medicaid Policy and Advocacy and Rashi Venkataraman is the Executive Director of Prevention and Population Health. They discuss the Opportunity Starts at Home campaign, the importance of multi-sector collaboration, the many linkages between housing and health, and why health insurance providers are increasingly taking action on housing. They also discuss specific examples of how certain health insurance providers are getting involved in housing, such as partnering with community organizations, providing case management services, and even investing in actual housing units. “Housing ends up being linked to treatment success,” explains Jones. “A person being discharged to a home is more likely to have a long-term positive outcome than a person with exactly the same clinical characteristics who is being discharged to homelessness.” Intro/Closing Song by: David Szesztay - "Joyful Meeting" URL:freemusicarchive.org/music/David_Sz…Joyful_Meeting Comments: freemusicarchive.org/ Copyright: Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 International: creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/