North Carolina’s Healthy Opportunities Pilots provide up to $650 million in Medicaid funding to deliver and evaluate evidence-based services related to housing, food, transportation, and interpersonal violence for Medicaid enrollees in three state regions. Each Pilot region has a Network Lead organization that is critical in coordinating prepaid health plans, care managers, and human service organizations to deliver and pay for services. Capacity-building for the program began in July 2021. Service delivery started in early 2022 and will continue through October 2024. To study the early rollout of the Pilots, researchers conducted two focus groups with eight individuals receiving Pilot social support services from all three of the Network Lead regions. Of these eight participants, seven were Medicaid beneficiaries, and six had already received food services through the Pilots. These focus groups brought people from diverse backgrounds (racially, ethnically, geographically, etc.). These focus groups were conducted in early May, so the experiences shared were limited to food services (notably, only food boxes). However, the team asked about their needs related to the other service domains and thoughts on housing, transportation, and stress services available through the Healthy Opportunities Pilots.

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Researcher

William K. Bleser, Ph.D., M.S.P.H.

Managing Associate, Payment Reform and Population Health

William K. Bleser, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., is Managing Associate, Payment Reform and Population Health at the Duke-Ma... Read Bio

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Researcher

Robert S. Saunders, Ph.D.

Research Director, Payment and Delivery Reform - Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy at Duke University

Robert S. Saunders, Ph.D., is Research Director, Payment and Delivery Reform at the Duke-Margolis Center for H... Read Bio