Tuesday, July 28, 2020
Member/Alternates Only Meeting
Virtual meeting via ZOOM
Minutes
Present: Deborah Barmack, Peter Barmack, Carole Beswick, Mike Burrows, Rashelle Bussell, Mark Cloud, Ken Coate, Sandra Cuellar, Kevin Dyerly, Louis Goodwin, Otis Greer, Fran Inman, Mark Kaenel, Lowell King, Pam Langford, Bill Lemann, Temetry Lindsey, P.T. McEwen, Jarrod McNaughton, John Mirau, Dan Murphy, Vikki Ostermann, Bansree Parikh, Steve PonTell, Brian Reider, Thomas Rice, Michael Rivera, Dan Roberts, Elizabeth Romero, Dan Schenkel, Kristine Scott, Paul Shimoff, Phil Southard, Pete Van Helden, Phil White, Kim Wilcox, Ray Wolfe and Frank Zabaleta.
Guests: Megan Barajas, Alissa Ko and Molly Wiltshire.
Announcements: 1) An Executive Committee meeting is planned to discuss the San Bernardino County Supervisor Compensation Reduction and Term Limits Initiative on the November ballot. 2) Mark Kaenel, Treasurer announced that the Inland Action year to date financials and his summary are on the web site for members to review.
Motion by K. Scott/Second by B. Reider/Passed: Minutes from July 21, 2020.
Louis Goodwin, Chair presiding.
The Inland Empire Health Plan (IEHP) is a local agency serving residents of Riverside and San Bernardino counties. It is a public entity formed as a Joint Powers Agency (JPA) created by Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Operational since September 1996, it is a public agency non-profit health maintenance organization (HMO). As a “mixed model” they contract with independent physician associations (IPA) and direct physician contracting.
Their current active membership totals some 648,848 individuals in Riverside County and 638,848 in San San Bernardino County.
Key Programs in 2020 include:
- IEHP Global Quality Pay for Performance (P4P) Program. This program was designed to reward Primary Care Physicians (PCPs) for high performance and year-over-year improvements in key quality performance measures. Providers are eligible to receive financial rewards for performance excellence and performance improvement.
- Network Expansion Fund (NEF). Launched September 2014, they have invested $46M to hire 340 new providers in the Inland Empire adding 326,000 to membership capacity.
- Healthcare Scholarship Fund (HSF) addresses the widespread shortage of physicians and other critically needed healthcare practitioners in the Inland Empire region. These scholarships help develop a pipeline and growing workforce of healthcare professionals to care for the Medi-Cal population in the Inland Empire. In 2020 $8M was awarded to medical programs at Loma Linda, University of California Riverside and California University for Science and Medicine (CUSM).
- IEHP Supportive Housing Program is dedicates $10M toward the needs its members. One program focuses on the most vulnerable, the homeless and those living in long-term care facilities.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, IEHP has provided assistance to their providers, members and the community. Some examples are:
- Donated of 2.4M PPE units across the Inland Empire.
- Supported skilled nursing facilities, providing increased rates to care for COVID-19 patients.
- Continued expedient claims processing to ensure timely cash flow.
- Provided meals and snacks to local hospital partner staff.
- Waived prior authorization requirements for diagnostic tests and medically necessary acute covered services, consistent with CDC guidance.
- Conducted live outbound wellness calls to more than 29,000 members who are seniors and have chronic conditions.
- Developed and coordinated a social isolation texting program to contact more than 94,000 members who are seniors and have disabilities.
- Partnered with FQHCs to provide a $100,000 grant to support COVID-19 testing.
- Drafted a regional letter with community partners to the COVID-19 State Taskforce that helped bring Rapid Response testing to the area.
- Collaborated with local food banks to combat food insecurity by providing staff, host space and more than $50k in sponsorships.
- Donated hygiene products, groceries, and reusable bags to local agencies.
- Provided $33k in technology scholarships to community organizations to support transitions to digital services.
- Collaborated with local agencies to establish the COVID-19 Medline, offering 24/7 medical advice to uninsured Inland Empire Residents.
A Q & A period followed.
Guests were excused.
Members present voted via Zoom polling on proposed member Health Net.
A majority of the members present voted to extend an invitation of membership to Health Net.
The Inland Empire Community Foundation (IECF) has requested that Darcy McNaboe serve as their Alternate representative.
Motion by T. Rice/Second by B. Reider/Passed: Darcy McNaboe will serve as the Alternate representative for the IECF.
Meeting adjourned at 9:03 a.m.