2 min read March 2023 — UnitedHealthcare of Florida operates as an insurance firm offering health benefit programs for all ages and lifestyles. Invest: spoke with CEO Nick Zaffiris about the highlights of the past year, how healthcare can be made cost-effective and what new projects and priorities are looming on the horizon.
What have been some of the biggest milestones and achievements for UnitedHealthcare in the past year?
The transition toward the end of and out of the pandemic has been a huge milestone. We’ve been a leader in the industry and have helped people navigate through the pandemic. We held webcasts to give them access to information, for example. Another milestone is that our parent company, UnitedHealth Group, was recognized by Fortune for the 11th consecutive year as the top managed-care company. It recognizes the leadership of our company as well as the innovation that we bring to the marketplace. One of the most meaningful milestones for all of our customers was the implementation of a zero-cost share of vital medications for all of our fully insured customers in Florida. From an industry perspective, it was the acceleration and the growth of delivering care virtually. If you look at the statistics before the pandemic and at the end of 2022, we’ve seen a 1,700% increase in the use of virtual visits. That means our members can have access to care almost on an on-demand basis for many situations while also having access to many different specialties.
What is the state of the industry?
For UnitedHealthcare, the opportunity is to continue to focus on our consumers. We continue to set the bar to be a consumer-centric organization. In the telehealth arena, it’s delivery of behavioral healthcare. One of the many unfortunate consequences of the pandemic was that we saw a need for more virtual behavioral healthcare across our entire population. Being able to deliver that care virtually means that people can access care in a way that wasn’t traditionally available. Then there is behavioral coaching, which is about helping people deal with a crisis. Our parent company, United, has two major businesses, Optum and UnitedHealthcare. We work very closely with Optum to make behavioral coaching available to our members.
What are your thoughts on how to make healthcare more cost-effective?
UnitedHealthcare is always focused on making our products and services as affordable as possible. We do that by giving our consumers access to information. When we say being consumer-centric, it starts with our myuhc.com website. And transparency is important. Our members can go to myuhc.com and access the cost of different services and better understand where to have the services rendered. For example, if you go to an outpatient standalone facility to have an MRI versus having it done within a hospital, depending on if it’s a scheduled service, there’s a tremendous cost difference. We also offer a very flexible preferred prescription drug list (PDL) and help our customers decide what is most important for them. We have some innovative new products, one of which is Surest. This is a product where we focus on technology and being a tech-forward company, combining that with being consumer-centric, where our members have an app on their phone and their benefit plan is all copayments. They use that app to pick the highest quality and most cost-effective providers to deliver that service and therefore they get the lowest copayment for that particular service.
What’s in the pipeline for UnitedHealthcare?
First and foremost is our commitment to the state of Florida. We’re one of the largest employers in the state and cover about two and a half million members in the state. We are excited about that continued dedication and commitment to the entire state of Florida. It’s a great privilege to be able to do that. We also serve all different segments. We have a very robust Medicare operation here in the state as well as Medicaid under our community and state brands. I’m excited that we’re able to serve a large population of the state of Florida. We also have several innovative products in the pipeline that we’ll be announcing soon. Setting the bar on innovation for others to try and compete with us on that basis is exciting. The Vital Medications Initiative that we rolled out wasn’t only on the local stage but it made it onto the national stage. From an industry perspective, we try to set the tone for the industry.
Our business is about doing the right thing on both a local and a national basis and helping our members lead healthier lives. We are working to make the healthcare system work more efficiently.
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