Big Problems Require Bold Solutions: Announcing a New Outcomes Fund to Support Mothers with Substance Use Disorder and Their Children
By Alison Rein, Vice President of Health and Human Services and Catherine Stapleton, Director of Health and Human Services
We are not essential healthcare workers - nor do we play them on TV - so it’s tremendously gratifying for us to announce today our partnership with Humana and Volunteers of America that has the potential to radically transform the lives of women struggling with the growing challenge of addiction. With a $5MM seed contribution from Humana, we are establishing the first-of-its-kind Family Focused Recovery (FFR) outcomes fund to sustainably scale an innovative Volunteers of America program model that serves mothers with substance use disorder and their children.
Studies show that FFR residential treatment can reduce total cost of care by 30% from the year prior to entry into residential treatment, and the three years post discharge. Volunteers of America (VOA) affiliates in two states have deployed a comprehensive FFR program model that helps moms recover from substance use disorder, achieve independence, and reconnect with their children. This is exactly the type of innovative program model that is needed to drive meaningful change for individuals, families, and communities.
The time to take bold action is now, and we are thrilled to have aligned partners that both see and are willing to seize the opportunity to do better. The pandemic has widened the cracks that already existed in our under-resourced social safety net. Millions of people have lost their jobs, and their employer-sponsored health insurance. State Medicaid rolls are rapidly expanding, and there is growing need among Medicaid members for non-traditional healthcare services, such as addiction recovery and support to maintain stable housing.
The situation requires an ambitious solution and collaboration among organizations that don’t always work together - and sometimes compete. This FFR fund model brings multiple parties to the table and creates the conditions for all of them to succeed.
For Humana (and other engaged health plans), this model leverages capital more effectively by pooling resources with like-minded philanthropic and impact investors and produces conditions that better serve their members. It also means that a single plan doesn’t need to bear the full financial burden of standing up and operating a program that is needed to better serve members and improve community health. This is exactly the type of coopetition that states are increasingly requesting (even requiring) from their Medicaid health plan contracts.
Through value-based contracts with health plans in their markets, VOA affiliates secure the predictable revenue needed to sustainably operate their FFR programs and to access needed capital. They can borrow from the fund, and repay impact investors through the revenue they generate from health plan partners like Humana who are willing to pay for achievement of key program outcomes, such as reduced neonatal abstinence syndrome births.
It satisfies investor appetite for opportunities that have the potential to deliver both social and financial returns.
It enables scale of a promising and sorely-needed program model that helps mothers and families in need get back on their feet.
In the months ahead, we will be actively engaging with foundations, family offices, impact investors, and other Medicaid health plans to expand the fund so that the level of resourcing available for innovative solutions like FFR can be commensurate with the size and scale of the challenge. We have a lot of work to do, but can’t think of a more compelling mission or aligned set of partners for these times. Onward.