Managed Healthcare Executive November 24, 2020
There’s some skepticism as programs to address social determinants of health proliferate. Some data are being collected.
Reading is a struggling small city (population 88,000) in southeastern Pennsylvania with a poverty rate of about 35%. If healthcare providers and providers are to travel “upstream” to address the social determinants of health (SDOH), communities like Reading might be where those efforts would have the biggest effect — or falter because the determinants are deep-seated and intertwined.
Three years ago, Reading Hospital, the 714-bed flagship hospital of Tower Health, a regional nonprofit health system in southeastern Pennsylvania, received a $4.5 million grant from CMS to start a program that teams up community organizations with the hospital. Medicare and Medicaid...