2024 In the Rearview: Celebrating Successes and Looking Ahead

As 2024 comes to a close, I’m reflecting once again on how fortunate I am to get to share the results of so much hard work and commitment by OAHP staff members and our fantastic partners over the past year.

One of the greatest privileges came late in the year, when I joined Ohio Medicaid Director Maureen Corcoran at a convention of the National Association of Medicaid Directors in November, to share the truly remarkable innovation happening in Ohio around collective impact. The extent to which our Medicaid managed care organizations (MCOs) work together via Ohio’s Next Generation of Medicaid (NextGen) to enable real progress on public health goals is unique.

While other states require their Medicaid MCOs to reinvest in the communities they serve, there’s simply no other state where the companies actually work collectively. It’s yielding great things for Ohioans, and I was proud to be a part of the presentation.

Helping manage these collaborative efforts here in Ohio is some of the most rewarding work OAHP does. In 2024, we ramped up a new Quality Withhold Innovation Fund, for which OAHP serves as the clearinghouse, by helping the plans administer the funds. An initial funding focus in the past year was Outcomes Acceleration for Kids, one of Gov. Mike DeWine’s initiatives to prioritize better outcomes rather than the business of managed care.

In 2025, we’ll be redoubling efforts around Gov. DeWine’s call to improve maternal and infant health as well as behavioral health services.

As the year ends, we’re working with the Center for Community Solutions to finalize awards to community-based organizations focused on specific public health goals in Cuyahoga and Athens counties — two Ohio regions where needs are great. I know those projects, ranging from food pantries to doulas to mental health care to primary care in public schools and many others, will bear fruit long beyond these initial grants.

In and around the Statehouse, we built and strengthened relationships with legislators and policymakers in support of our policy priorities. We succeeded in adding language to require site-neutral care to House Bill 49, the primary aim of which is to require hospital price transparency. While the bill may not pass before this session ends, I’m confident that the momentum we’ve built will serve us in the next session.

We’ll benefit in that effort from the great work of Megan Richwine, who joined us in October as director of government affairs. If your work takes you around the Statehouse and you haven’t met Meg, you should make it a point to!

We doubled down on the work of our Commercial Plan Committee, which aims to show policymakers that the goals of health plans are aligned with those of the business community — CEOs, chambers of commerce, brokers, and all those working to keep health care accessible and affordable. On several occasions, group letters from the committee have let lawmakers know when a proposed bill has the potential to drive up costs and harm patient access to care.

For those who aren’t hanging around politicians on a regular basis, keeping up with the dizzying pace of change in our industry is a real challenge. As we do every year, we held our Executive Forum in June as a way to brief plan CEOs, medical and pharmacy directors, lobbyists, and others together virtually to hear from experts and innovators in drug pricing, plan member engagement, hospital facility fees and more.

As always, we made communication with our stakeholders and the public a top priority in 2024. Through OAHP.org, our social media channels, and outreach to legislators and media, we shared our perspective on key issues and provided a forum to important partners. We started in January, with Aetna Vice President and OhioRISE CEO Marti Taylor on how OhioRISE is helping kids with complex behavioral health needs stay connected to their communities. During Black History Month, Ericka King Betts, Humana’s director of health equity, wrote about how greater health equity will change the course of Black history.

Scott Cantley of Memorial Health System shared exciting news about progress in building southeast Ohio’s first Women and Children’s Hospital and Dr. Bradley Jackson, plan performance medical director for Anthem BCBS Ohio Medicaid, discussed recent grants aimed at tackling Ohio’s unacceptably high rate of maternal mortality. Other guest blogs delved into Groundwork Ohio’s roadshow listening tour and the importance of keeping health care affordable by avoiding ill-considered mandates; Julie Fleischer of Soda Health, our presenting sponsor for the 2024 Annual Convention & Trade Show, wrote about how Smart Benefits can drive health equity. And most recently, we published an explanation of how care management entities like Cadence Care Network drive the work of OhioRISE by Cadence CEO Matt Kresic.

OAHP staff helped stock the blog, too, with Regulatory Affairs Director Angela Weaver’s pieces on Medicaid’s impact and the tremendous potential of statewide MyCare as well as my reports on our 2024 Executive Forum, a wrap-up of September’s annual convention and an introduction to Megan Richwine. I also expect my blog on the economic impact of Ohio’s health plans to be published soon in Ohio Matters, the online publication of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. OAHP staff and consultants contributed to an April white paper on what goes into setting insurance premiums.

And in a new project for 2024, we introduced a Quarterly Newsletter, compiling the best of our blogs, a sampling of social media posts and a quick update on legislative priorities. By sharing the newsletter directly via email with stakeholders and legislators and inviting them to subscribe, we’re increasing the likelihood that the folks we most want to communicate with will see what we’re up to and hear our perspective on industry issues.

September’s Annual Convention & Trade Show brought another great lineup of speakers. Mikal Jeffries, vice president and senior benefit consultant with HUB | HORAN, and Drug Pricing Analyst Anthony Ciaccia educated us on the evolving efforts to help plans cope with the astronomical cost of new specialty drugs like gene therapies. Researchers from the Scripps Gerontology Center gave an in-depth look at how social drivers of health apply to aging patients and how plan design can take them into account.

Every year, we pack a lot into a day and a half for the convention. I hope you’ll consider joining us next year!

Before 2025 gets very far along, we’ll be jumping headlong into negotiations over Ohio’s next two-year budget. With one-time pandemic funding mostly gone, the budget could be a challenging one. I’ll be glad to have Meg and Angela in the trenches with me advocating for health plans and health care consumers.

One early chance to see what we’re up to will come on April 8, at our Spring Member Forum and Legislative Reception in Columbus. I hope to see lots of you there! And in the meantime, we at OAHP wish everyone a happy holiday season and a happy and healthy new year.