BECKLEY, WV (LOOTPRESS) – As one of Medicaid’s Managed Care Organizations, UniCare of West Virginia has offered healthcare solutions to West Virginians for decades. On Thursday, UniCare of West Virginia team members – including President Tadd Haynes – paid a visit to the Beckley area to lead community discussions on health equity, workforce participation, and more.
These discussions took place at Beckley’s Tamarack Marketplace on Thursday where, upon the event’s conclusion, UniCare of West Virginia President Tadd Haynes took time to chat with LOOTPRESS about issues impacting residents throughout the Mountain State.
“It was it was great conversation; it was a robust conversation, and we covered a lot of topics,” he said of the community event.
“We spent a lot of time talking about social drivers of health, things like employment, education, transportation, and food security. We talked about those issues and how those factors influence a person’s overall health; things that we can do as a community to impact those things and limitations to training opportunities for folks. We had a multifaceted group of folks. We had policymakers; we had folks from provider offices; we had folks from DHHR.”
Touching on community engagement, Haynes detailed some of the partnerships through which UniCare of WV has been able to effectively assist residents in need by way of various resources and programs designed to provide support.
“We work with the Raleigh County Family Resource Network, they’re a key provider in this area. We’ve provided some funding and support for community baby showers – we want to make sure that new moms and expectant moms have all the resources that they need. We’ve done some back to school events with One Voice. They served a bunch of kids, about 1200 students in 11 schools,” he says, propounding the notion that progress is often generated most effectively by those doing the right things for the right reasons.
“We’ve worked with Heart of God Ministries; we’ve done some things with our mobile unit to provide community resources and hygiene essentials to families in need with the Raleigh County Family Support Center. We do some stuff with the Emergency Housing Center. We’ve provided outreach and hygiene products for [AWAY, formerly known as] Women’s Resource Center,] and Mountain Heart’s Birth to Three program.”
With Veterans Day on the horizon, those who have served was a topic of discussion. The notion of serving those who have served was particularly pertinent in this instance, as West Virginia has long ranked as a state which some of the most veteran residents per capita.
“We’ve actually done a lot of things with the VA Veterans Affairs,” says Haynes. “We know all the challenges that veterans deal with, whether it be mental health issues; whether it be housing and stability,; whether it be food instability – so we have worked a lot with the VA in West Virginia to make sure that, for our members that do cross over to those VA services but also receive Medicaid, that we’re getting them connected with the right services, and we make sure that our staff are trained on the right questions to ask veterans.”
Lastly, Haynes reiterates the commitment of the organization not only to the state and its residents, but also to ensuring that germane issues are sufficiently understood, and that effective communication is facilitated in order to promote3 positive change within communities.
“We are committed to the state. We are committed to the communities we serve,” he proclaims. “We want to make sure that we are listening; we want to make sure that we are doing everything we can to bring positive solutions to the state.”
For more information on healthcare and coverage solutions available to West Virginia residents through UniCare, visit the UniCare of WV website.
Additional LOOTPRESS coverage of recent events throughout the Raleigh County area can be found here.