The Whole Health Story: What ‘Whole Health, Whole You’ means for our members
April 22, 2022-
UniCare talks with industry experts to pull the curtain back on health plans
A conversation with Danielle Emerle, Director of UniCare’s clinical team.
My name is Danielle Emerle and I’m a Clinical Director for UniCare. I oversee the team of health professionals who support UniCare’s Whole Health, Whole You program. The program was introduced last year to Basic, PLUS, and Community Choice members.
Whole Health, Whole You is designed to support the health and well-being of our members. I called it a “program” before, but that’s a bit misleading. You can think of Whole Health, Whole You as UniCare’s overall purpose, our mission. We want to improve health. Really, it’s that simple. But that doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Whole Health, Whole You includes everyone here who supports and serves our members – from the UniCare health guides who answer members’ calls to our team of care managers. Care managers are the nurses and other specialists who work directly with members dealing with health concerns.
The care management team I oversee is a talented and dedicated group of clinical experts. Along with the nurses, we have a dietitian, pharmacist, social worker, respiratory therapist, and exercise physiologist.
Our team is available to any member who needs them. If, for example, a member has a question about a medication, the care manager can quickly touch base with the pharmacist. A member needing social services might get useful outreach from the social worker. A member with diabetes might be transferred to the dietitian for advice on healthy eating to better manage their condition. There are lots of other examples.
Having these professionals available as part of Whole Health, Whole You is a real advantage to supporting the physical, behavioral, emotional, and social factors that impact our members’ health. Think of it this way: with UniCare, you have a clinical all-star team ready to go to bat for you every day.
This article is part of a new blog series from UniCare, “The Whole Health Story,” where we talk with various members of the UniCare team and other leading health industry experts to dive into the inner workings of health benefit organizations like ours that advance health and dig deeper into what whole health means.
