Name: Humana's CEO is Mandating Vaccinations for Office Workers and Contractors
Uploaded: 2021-08-26
Duration: 9 min 17 s
Description: Bruce Broussard says without mandates 'we'll never get out of this predicament.'

Bruce Broussard says without mandates "we'll never get out of this predicament."

Humana's CEO is Mandating Vaccinations for Office Workers and Contractors

Leadership

Humana's CEO is Mandating Vaccinations for Workers

Bruce. Thank you so much for joining us to talk about Humana. I know you've been a big advocate of health and wellness for a long time even before the pandemic and you know, the importance of getting people vaccinated against the Covid virus. So do you think that this new full approval of Pfizer's vaccine will boost public confidence about the safety and effectiveness of vaccines and they will go out and get vaccinated. Is this a game changer? I think it's going to greatly help me. I do believe that it's going to motivate more people as a result of the safety of it. Um you know, for us as an organization, we just announced last week in front of the approval process that we are going to mandate the vaccine for all our employees that come to one of our facilities basically works out anybody that works outside their home uh and for contractors and we feel the having the FDA behind that turn into a full approval really provides that feeling safety. And I know for a number of our employees the question was around, is it safe? And I think that's brings the more credibility to that. So we're hoping so, and I really believe, and I do believe just businesses need to take a leadership role here and encouraging both in the community and outside the community through the employee base of having vaccination. Well as a top healthcare ceo what can you say to business leaders who are on the fence about this. As you know, it's been highly debated topic of whether you should be forcing your employees that they have to be vaccinated to come into the office, what would you say? You know, we're talking to our fellow ceos. What I'm finding is as much about the vaccination is about the labor shortage and there are certain populations that are low in vaccination and there's a significant amount of uh demand for those services for the that labor pool. And so they're weighing that. I just feel the more we can encourage the vaccination through mandates through assistance and getting the vaccination, the delta variants and all what comes with. It will basically go away without that. We're going to see this continued mutation of the virus and we'll never get out of this predicament we're in. I do believe business leaders really need to take a stance on this even though it might create some labor shortage for that. Well this is such a huge public health Issue as as you know, and I know that at Humana you have been making an effort to get people vaccinated. How successful have you been? We're good. I mean I think we're about where the public is in general in the 60% level now our seniors that we serve daily or above 80%. Um so we are seeing progress. So we're seeing a significant change and we're also seeing people now get the vaccination. So we're hoping that this will push people over the edge? But again, as you articulated the approval? I think will be a great assistance here. What more do you think that humanity can do? Is there some way to incentivize people to get vaccinated? We offer it, but we find the incentives really are not the motivator. I think this concern of safety is more part of the reason why people aren't getting vaccinated and I just feel we have to continue to reiterate that safety and appropriately, if there are medical conditions that could jeopardize somebody's health and we, we want to accommodate that. But the safety seems to be the largest issue around the vaccination versus access, which before it was access or some other inconvenience. We're not seeing that today. You know, Bruce when people hear the name Humana, they think big medical health insurance company, but you've been buying or partnering with hundreds of primary care clinics, you acquire a telehealth startup company not long ago and you've been moving into the business of home health services. So it sounds like humanity doing a lot more than just paying medical claims. Tell us where you're going with all of this. And why, you know, what's really interesting is Humana started out as a nursing home company And then evolved, this was 60 years ago. In fact, our anniversary was last week evolved to a hospital company and then to a health insurance company. Um, what we believe in is is that long term the payment is going to change from a volume based payment model to a model that is more around outcomes, quality and cost. And what you see the organization is really moving to accommodate that evolution. The more we can help people stay healthy, the better we do. So it's just do right for do good kind of activity. And so as we think about how do we keep people healthy? It's this proactive care where we can ensure people are getting their proper testing for the primary care doctor, we can bring a nurse into their home to ensure that we're providing the proper care to them on a more proactive basis where they might not have transportation or provide telehealth, behavioral telehealth in the home or I'll deliver their pharmacy into this home. So this idea to make it easy for our customers to get their health and do it in an integrated way and we feel the more we can invest, can own in those businesses and integrate them through technology, it is much easier for our customers. How did the covid pandemic influence what you're doing now and what more do you want to do in this direction? What's interesting is we had started this actually a number of years ago and Covid has accelerated it. This idea of an omni channel delivery care really came out of Covid. And so what you see us doing is trying to accelerate it as opposed to change it. And we do believe that over time a more convenient care model where it's coming to the individual as opposed to the individual going to the care is what's going to be really the winning strategy. And that's what you see the organization. So really speeding it up, scaling it is what we're really worrying to do now. You mentioned the omni channel approach because we've seen so many companies in other industries who have embraced these digital technologies much more actively, but when it comes to health care, uh, companies have been much slower to embrace it. Has Covid changed your thinking about how much more forward you want to go with the digital growth. Very much so it has really accelerated I think the use of technology and health care and there's really two sides of it. One is around the companies offering it and the second is around the customer and the provider, the doctor using it. And what we've seen with Covid has become much more comfortable of not only the company offering it, but also users using it now, very similar to our work environment today where before videoconferencing was always around, but it wasn't used that much. Now we see the same thing in health care. And so it gives us this opportunity to really scale it. You've been um ceo of Humana for 10 years and you really reshaped the company during your tenure, looking ahead five years. How do you want people to describe humana? And what it does really we want to describe Humana as a health service company that is oriented to the outcomes of individuals health as opposed to financing or providing insurance. It's really around that. We are caring for individuals health and doing that in a proactive and integrated life. On a personal note, Bruce, you wrote an op ed piece recently and you said that the covid pandemic and I'm quoting you, stretched Humana and me in ways we have never contemplated before. And you also said that there were some lifelong lessons that you learned that's actually influencing the way you read Humana. So what was the most important lesson and what kind of changes are you making as a result of that? It's really around this idea of intentionality. And what I mean by that is, you know, when you come to the office and you work in the office, you think you're creating a culture and for for us we have 500 locations. So creating a culture in one office seems to be sort of naive and what covid really brought to me is a much more outreach orientation and for me, what I've learned is I have much more effective to be able to be virtual, but to be more oriented to being able to touch people and in a way that I wasn't able to touch before, Not because I didn't have the opportunity, it just never came to me. So this intentionality of being a leader that is more outgoing and as opposed that it coming to you is a really important part of what I've seen in covid.