Five Things to Know from Humana’s 2020 Bold Goal Progress Report

By Clive Riddle, June 19, 2020

Humana in 2015 launched its Bold Goal program, their population health strategy targeting specific communities, and incorporating SDoH components with the goal of improving health of these communities in applicable measures by 20%. They have just released their 2020 Bold Goal Progress Report which details the company’s progress in meeting their goal, and their “ongoing efforts to help address the impact that social determinants of health and health-related social needs, such as food insecurity and loneliness, have on the physical and mental health of the Medicare Advantage population.”

For targeted communities and populations, their program “uses the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Healthy Days assessment tool to measure the mentally and physically unhealthy days of individuals over a 30-day period, covering Humana member populations through lines of business such as Medicare Advantage, Group and Medicaid.”

Here’s five things to know from the 2020 Progress Report: 

1. In their original (2015) seven Bold Goal communities, the number of unhealthy days reduced from 13.58 in 2015 to 13.27 in 2020, which non-bold goal communities increased from 13.42 to 13.45 during that time.
2. Of the seven communities, five reduced unhealthy days from 2015-2019, while two increased: San Antonio -8.6%; Baton Rouge -4.5%; Tampa -3.7%; New Orleans -2.2%; Knoxville -2.2%; Broward +0.6% and Louisville +7.4%
3. For the first time since Humana began benchmarking, Humana Medicare Advantage members across all markets improved their Healthy Days. 
4. Humana screened more than 2.6 million Humana members for social determinants of health in 2019. Humana found that each member screened had an average of 3.5 health-related social needs (e.g. food insecurity, socially isolated or lonely)
5. Depression had the most unhealthy days of six targeted chronic conditions, members with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) had 17.94 unhealthy days (decreased 1.2% in 2019); coronary artery disease had 14.94 unhealthy days (decreased 1.8%); depression had 22.21 unhealthy days (decreased 2.9%), congestive heart failure had 17.29 unhealthy days (decreased 3.1%) and hypertension had 13.67 unhealthy days (decreased 3.2%)