Abner Mason has spent decades working to reduce barriers to care faced by underserved people, who often experience harm and misunderstanding in their health encounters.  He joins us to talk about how to build trust in healthcare. It means slowing down to really understand and meet each person’s unique needs. That’s the work Abner leads as Founder and CEO of SameSky Health. 

We discuss: 

• That our work is not to judge other people’s choices, it’s to expand the opportunity set they see in front of themselves
• How health plans are learning to have patience
• Advice for entrepreneurs: don’t be too enamored of your own ideas
• Using our voices to oppose hate
• What’s at stake with Medicaid redeterminations

Abner reminds us that people are not quality measures:

“We focus on understanding people's priorities first, which helps us develop and maintain their trust. One of the things we've learned is that people are not quality measures; we need to prioritize them first. By figuring out what's important in their lives, we can truly make them feel heard and understood.”

Relevant Links

SameSky Health website

NCQA stratification of quality measures by race and ethnicity

FCC declaratory on texting for Medicaid redeterminations [PDF]

Results of vaccine outreach and equity campaign [PowerPoint]

Effective Strategies for Collecting Health-Equity-Related Member Data to Identify and Address Health Disparities [Webinar]

About Our Guest

Abner Mason has spent decades working to reduce barriers to care faced by underserved people nationally and internationally, from the federal to the local level. He is founder and CEO of SameSky Health, a cultural experience company that forms meaningful relationships to bring people to health. He has served on President Bush’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, as Chief Policy Advisor to the Governor of Massachusetts, and as part of the Biden-Harris Campaign Policy Committee. He currently sits on the Boards of Manifest MedEx and the California Black Health Network, is a member of United States of Care’s Founders Council, and the American Medical Association’s External Equity and Innovation Advisory Group. He is also the founder of Health Tech 4 Medicaid.

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For more information on The Other 80 please visit our website - www.theother80.com. To connect with our team, please email [email protected] and follow us on twitter @claudiawilliams and LinkedIn.