Connecting for Health

Contributing expert: Pete Haytaian

Care providers need a dynamic set of capabilities and services to help them see every patient's big picture, from their health and medication histories to their behavioral and social needs. When it comes to adopting a whole health approach to care delivery, the same is true: The right capabilities and supports are essential to driving systemic change within the healthcare ecosystem.

Having access to that big-picture view enables care providers to better connect the dots between payers, community support organizations, and each other to deliver the best possible care. However, we recognize care providers can't do it alone.

As a healthcare company serving 119 million people, Elevance Health is uniquely qualified to create those connections.¹ It's why we partner locally in our communities and why we launched our subsidiary, Carelon.

Investing in Integrated, Data-Driven Solutions

Carelon's portfolio of businesses brings together clinical expertise, powerful capabilities, unmatched data, and collaborative partnerships with a single goal in mind: to make it easier to improve whole health.

That approach is rooted in meeting consumers' physical, behavioral, and social needs using integrated, data-driven solutions and partnerships with care providers and community organizations. The insights, tools, and support we offer help our partners glean a more holistic understanding of each patient's needs, so they can better meet them.

To date, Carelon has helped care providers elevate the whole health of millions of people across all 50 states through deeply integrated services, capabilities, and platforms that benefit the individuals we mutually serve.²

By deploying data and services at the right time, and automating clinical workflows, we're able to reduce care provider burden and move patients to the right care setting faster. At the same time, we're delivering the latest clinical insights to help facilitate integrated care and data-driven decisions.

Carelon's capabilities include:

Prioritizing pharmacy care coordination.

Expanding access to behavioral health support.

Optimizing the post-acute care experience.

Pioneering solutions to move the needle on social drivers of health.

Empowering Consumers

Hear the difference our approach made for one person.

James Bastel:
I was in just a bad cycle. I'd do really well, you know, then really bad, and then really well.

On-screen text:
James has had physical, behavioral, and social health concerns, including not having a place to live.

James Bastel:
One thing I noticed about being in homelessness: Basically, you end up just getting used to everything. Once you get used to it, you don't try as hard to get out of it. I tried to stay outside as much as I could, 24/7.

I knew I wasn't going to make it back to the shelter in time, and it got really, really cold. And I started a fire, which I've done 100 times before — but this night was different. I mean, I woke up, you know, basically on fire. I lost my left leg and parts of my back.

Tina Derrick:
James was in need of case management. I outreached to James, you know, in a cold call, basically. When you're reaching out to somebody, you have to see them as a person, as the center of a life.

James Bastel:
When Tina got involved everything it made everything work a little bit better. She was treating me like a person.

Tina Derrick:
To be able to have everything all under one umbrella of Carelon, it definitely makes things a lot more efficient. I was able to address the whole person, help him with his physical health needs by getting him to more connection with his primary care physician. I was able to help him grow in his mental health, as well, by getting him in touch more with his therapist, getting him stable with taking medications regularly, and then also to address the housing needs.

James Bastel:
If I wouldn't have been involved in the programs I was in, there's no way that I could be where I'm at now, basically. They just fought hard for me to get the right kind of programing. And here's where it pays off, doing something like that: I don't go to the hospital anymore. I don't have nearly as many physical problems like I did before.

Tina Derrick:
And to see who he is today compared to who he was then, it's hard for me to come up with the words.

James Bastel:
Nice to meet you.

Tina Derrick:
It's nice meeting you too. I just drove in, just to see you.

James Bastel:
First of all, thanks. Thanks for coming down and visiting me, and I just appreciate it so much. I'm in a good place.

Tina Derrick:
It's just nice to see somebody succeeding.

On-screen text:
James has been living in an apartment for a year and is hopeful for his future.

Our Efforts by the Numbers

20x

increase in our specialty prescription capabilities planned by scaling our BioPlus Specialty Pharmacy infrastructure³

11,881

average number of texts and calls fielded each month in 2023 for the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline⁴

23%

reduction in average length of stay for skilled nursing facilities supported by our new post-acute care provider portal in 2023⁵

45 million

Whole Health Index scores we've calculated for consumers to measure whole health⁶

1 Elevance Health: About Elevance Health (accessed October 2023): elevancehealth.com. 2 Carelon: About Us (accessed October 2023): carelon.com. 3 Carelon Behavioral Health, internal estimates (March 2023). 4 Carelon Behavioral Health, 988 dashboard data (2023). 5 Carelon, post-acute care data analytics (December 2023). 6 Winnie C. Chi, PhD, MS, J. Marc Overhage, MD, PhD, Todd Sponholt, PhD, MPH, Binh T. Nguyen, PhD, Peter Brady, MBA, April Falconi, PhD, MPH, MA, Martha Johnson, PhD, et al.: The Whole Health Index: A Practical, Valid, and Reliable Tool to Measure Whole-Person Health and Manage Population Health. New England Journal of Medicine Catalyst (May 30, 2023): https://catalyst.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/CAT.23.0015.

Pharmacy Integration

Discover our whole-health-focused pharmacy models