Latest news with #HighmarkHealth
CBS News
5 days ago
- Health
- CBS News
Pittsburgh-area volunteers help older adults overcome social isolation
Local volunteers are helping older adults overcome social isolation. Though the temperature outside on Friday felt like it was well into the 90s, indoors at the LifeSpan Mon Valley Senior Center in McKeesport, it was Christmas in July, as dozens of seniors came out to share a meal, a good time, and break away from their social isolation. Kannu Sahni, the vice president of community affairs with Highmark Health and Allegheny Health Network, one of the organizations sponsoring the gathering, says that social isolation is a real issue. "I think COVID kind of exacerbated it and made it very apparent to everyone, but we are seeing that social isolation is the leading cause of mental health issues amongst our seniors," Sahni said. Luckily, AHN, along with the Allegheny County Area Agency on Aging, is meeting this problem head-on. Not only do they partner for events like this one that get people out of the house, but they also spearhead the volunteer Senior Companion Program, which goes directly into people's homes. "There are over 350 older adults who have been paired with Senior Companions," said Dr. Shannah Gilliam, the Director of Aging Services at the Allegheny County Department of Human Services. "They come, they visit, they play games, they spend time, they talk, sometimes they might help them clean up a little bit around the house, but it is really just making a friend." Part of the event was filling up care packages for Senior Companions to take on their house calls. Michele Petit-Hammond from East McKeesport says she has been a Senior Companion for years. She says that it makes her feel good to show people that they are not alone. "It is a great thing to do for your lonely and alone senior family who need somebody to talk to or even need to go for a walk or someone to engage or having a friend," said Petit-Hammond. "Everybody needs somebody to talk to," she added. Senior Companions is always looking for volunteers to go out into the community. People interested in the program, either as a volunteer or recipient, can contact SeniorLine for more information at (412) 350-5460 or this email address.
Business Journals
17-07-2025
- Business
- Business Journals
Highmark Blue Shield enables digital front door for members with My Highmark app
Roughly two years from its initial launch, Highmark's My Highmark app has proven to be a popular digital front door to the insurer's services. 'If you think about what a typical health insurance experience might have been a couple of years ago, most people had to navigate lots of different apps and websites,' said Stacy Byers, senior vice president of experience, design and digital for Highmark Health. 'You might go to one place for just your insurance transactions. You might go to another place for your wellness program. You might go to another place to access virtual care. It was very fragmented with lots of login IDs and passwords to remember.' My Highmark consolidated all of that, creating a single point of contact for accessing all of Highmark's care and benefits resources. So far, more than 1.3 million users have signed onto the platform. High-tech collaboration Byers and her team were instrumental in Highmark's launch of My Highmark as its digital front door. They partnered with the Ontario-based health care technology company League, Google Cloud, and Highmark Health subsidiary, enGen, to create the app. Their goal: eliminate the need for customers to use multiple platforms to navigate their benefits while delivering a more personalized health care journey. The project required extensive cross-functional collaboration across product, digital product, design, sales, marketing, operations, technology and data. Still, the project moved quickly. It kicked off in May 2022, and the first version was available to Highmark employees and a small segment of members in January 2023. Throughout 2023, the team worked to add capabilities and members to the platform. Now, My Highmark is available to Highmark's commercial, Affordable Care Act, and Medicare Advantage members. Highmark continues to enhance the app and roll out significant updates. This summer, members will have access to a new provider directory with a smoother interface and improved data. 'We've done a massive data clean up, so when you look up a doctor, you can easily find their phone number and see if they're accepting new patients,' Byers said. What's inside My Highmark The My Highmark experience was built using human-centered design, a philosophy that Highmark adopted 15 years ago. This approach begins with understanding user problems and designing thoughtful solutions tailored to real-world needs. 'It is about understanding the problem and then designing the solution for the humans that are going to use a particular service,' Byers said. 'And it's not just for designers. It can actually help business people prioritize what it is that they're going to go do because they might understand that a certain feature is more helpful to their users than another feature.' Byers and her team started with the most common needs members have: find a doctor, check their claim status, understand their benefits and get customer support. Each of those functions is easy to access in My Highmark. Plus, the app's chatbot is programmed to address hundreds of issues. Then, if it isn't able to address a user's question, it seamlessly passes them onto a live customer service agent. Then, they added direct access to Highmark's many virtual care services. For example, members can set up and complete a virtual primary care visit directly through the app. They also can access its mental and behavioral health platform Mental Well-Being Powered by Spring Health and its virtual care platforms Virtual Pelvic Health, Bloom by Sword and Virtual Joint Health, Thrive by Sword. Benefits to employers Highmark's digital transformation isn't just about convenience; it's about improving health outcomes and reducing medical costs. The integration of diverse health benefits into a single platform creates a seamless, engaging experience that encourages preventative care and proactive health management. One of the ways it accomplishes this is by personalizing members' experiences. The My Highmark app prompts users to complete a health assessment and then uses the results to direct people to resources that are most relevant to them. 'We are only prompting you with the things that your coverage actually provides you access to,' Byers said. 'So you never have to have that disappointment of clicking on a link and realizing, 'Oh, it's not for me.'' For employers, the app gives employees a one-stop shop for information about their insurance coverage. This helps cut down on the time human resources team members have to spend answering basic questions. Employers can extend this capability by co- branding the app with their business and having Highmark add custom links to additional benefits programs they may offer, such as a dependent care account, transportation benefit or wellness rewards and incentives. 'Those wellness incentive programs start with the health risk assessment, which allows us to tailor their experience and prompt uses with the right information for how they can take advantage of Highmark resources on their health journey,' Byers said. By transforming health care access from a complicated maze of resources into a unified digital experience, Highmark aims to make navigating health care easier, getting the right care to the right people at the right time.
Business Journals
14-05-2025
- Health
- Business Journals
Highmark's expanded access to high-quality mental health care delivers results
A year after launching a mental and behavioral health platform, Highmark is reporting significant improvements in both access to care and member outcomes. Highmark introduced Mental Well-Being powered by Spring Health in January 2024, now enabling 2.5 million people ages six and up access to mental health care. The tool includes screenings for more than a dozen mental health conditions, the ability to quickly schedule a virtual or in-person appointment with a therapist or psychiatrist and a library of on-demand educational resources. The collaboration is part of Highmark's ongoing commitment to making mental and behavioral health an equal pillar to medical health, said Doug Henry, a clinical psychologist who serves as medical director for Highmark Health's enterprise behavioral health team. Today, Mental Well-Being is available to members across a wide range of Highmark plans, including commercial fully insured and self-funded, Affordable Care Act, Medicare Advantage and the Pennsylvania Children's Health Insurance Program. 'Mental health is a key part of whole-person health,' Henry said. 'You can never talk about someone's mental health separate from the context of their overall medical health.' Improving access, outcomes Just over a year into the collaboration, Spring Health has completed more than 100,000 appointments for Highmark members. The results were incredibly compelling, Henry shared, demonstrating the effectiveness of rapid access to high-quality, low-friction care. Highlights include: It takes less than two days on average for members to secure a psychiatric or psychotherapy appointment, compared to more than a month in much of the U.S. People are using mental health services more readily, with 80% of Mental Well-Being users engaging in mental health services for the first time in at least 18 months. On average, members with moderate to severe anxiety or depression are treated to remission in less than six sessions. 'Mental health treatment can be expensive, so you want to have efficacious care,' Henry said. 'You want to have someone go into treatment where there is a beginning, middle and an end, and then they're better. Mental Well-Being is delivering that for us.' The benefits extend beyond cost containment, he said. Employees who access timely and effective mental health care are more productive, more engaged and healthier overall. When untreated, mental health challenges can exacerbate physical health issues as well. 'Investing in high-quality, effective mental health services is one of the best ways — and one of the least expensive ways — to lower total cost of care for your employees while improving community health,' Henry said. How it works Finding the right therapist is a common challenge for those seeking mental health support. Spring Health uses an AI-driven algorithm to match people to providers who are most likely to meet their needs, considering a host of consumer preferences to ensure a good fit. 'Ninety-six percent of our members who get paired with a Spring Health clinician stay with that clinician for six months or longer or through the course of their treatment,' Henry said. 'That's very unusual in mental health. It's more typical that about 50% of the time the first therapist you meet is not a match.' In addition, Mental Well-Being goes beyond offering therapy and psychiatric appointments. It includes educational programs, self-guided cognitive behavioral therapy programs for issues such as stress, meditation programs and behavioral health coaching. It also offers medication management, 24/7 crisis support and higher levels of specialized care for substance use disorders, eating disorders and other complex challenges. Continued growth Highmark is continuing to invest in expanding mental health services through both the Mental Well-Being program and its network of 44,000 providers, Henry said. The company is closely studying the data to identify which interventions yield the best results and incorporating mental health as part of each person's overall care. 'We believe in delivering the right mental health care, at the right time, tailored to each individual's unique needs and circumstances,' he said. 'And Mental Well-Being is how we're scaling that personalized access to care for our members.'
Yahoo
06-02-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Pittsburgh Cultural Trust creating new space for art, activities in Downtown Pittsburgh
'This is probably the biggest project in the last 25 years, if not more,' Pittsburgh Cultural Trust Chair, David Holmberg told Channel 11. Holmberg is the CEO of Highmark Health and the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust chair. The project he's talking about is 'Arts Landing.' Today, he and community leaders announced the transformation of four acres of empty space in downtown Pittsburgh. 'This opens up a whole new avenue for people to truly live, work, and play in the city,' he said. Arts Landing will have an outdoor theater, green space, and playgrounds. If you go downtown, you likely have driven by the location — it's the empty space on Eighth Street, between Fort Duquesne Boulevard and Penn Avenue. After it's created, Arts Landing will be the new location of the Arts Festival and other large events that come into town. Arts Landing is expected to be done in 12-18 months. Download the FREE WPXI News app for breaking news alerts. Follow Channel 11 News on Facebook and Twitter. | Watch WPXI NOW
