In this episode, Kelly Munson, President and CEO of Independence Health Group, discusses the evolving Medicaid and ACA landscape, the impact of policy changes on coverage and affordability, and the role of managed care in improving health outcomes. She also shares insights on food as medicine, healthcare innovation, and leadership lessons from becoming the organization&#x27;s first female CEO.

Medicaid, Food as Medicine, and the Future of Coverage with Kelly Munson

Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** Becker’s Healthcare Podcast

## Participants

- **Liz Caslow** (Becker's Healthcare)
- **Kelly Munson** (Independence Health Group)

## Transcript

GLP wants Medicare Advantage headwinds, a Medicaid landscape that looks different every quarter. Payer leadership right now means making durable decisions in an environment that keeps moving, and the organizations pulling ahead are the ones that stopped waiting for stability before acting. Be Becker's fifth annual Fall Payer Issues Roundtable convenes more than 500 executive-level attendees and 70-plus speakers November 2nd and 3rd at the Swiss Hotel Chicago.

Two days of senior-level dialogue on affordability, benefit design, value-based care, and the strategies shaping how care gets financed and delivered. Featuring a celebrity keynote from Pro Football Hall of Famer Emmett Smith. Agenda and registration at beckerspayer.com. Click events in the upper right. Hi, everyone. This is Liz Caslow with the Becker's Healthcare Podcast.

I'm really excited today to be joined by Kelly Munson, President and CEO of Independence Health Group. So, Kelly, thank you so much for joining us today. Thanks, Liz. Good to be here. We're excited to have you. And so I would love to get started by talking about your role at Independence Health Group and just your background more generally. Yeah, you know, Liz, I don't know that I started out thinking that I would end up being my entire career in managed care,

but I was in college one day and I found out that the school lunch program was considering ketchup a fruit. And at that time, you had to have three fruits or vegetables in the lunch program. And I remember being so irate about that and then started doing some research on what the school lunch programs did for children, what it meant for education, what it meant for test scores, and just got so ingrained in the role that nutrition, dietetics, preventative care,

making sure people's needs are met, had in leading a healthy lifestyle and being able to educate and work going forward. And so I just dove right into it and realized that managed care is a place that has programs that specifically address those things. So I've spent most of my career on the national stage running Medicaid and Medicare health plans and ACA across multiple states

and am now sitting at Independence Health Group, which has been pretty amazing because I get all lines of business. I get the national presence of AmeriHealth Caritas, who's in 13 states and D.C., on the Medicaid stage and the duly eligible for Medicare and Medicaid and ACA. And then I have this very local Philly-centric, you know, largest health insurer of commercial business, traditional Medicare and ACA.

So I really get to see the life cycle kind of across all lines of business. And I get to see that both locally and then in a national stage. So it's been an incredible experience so far. So maybe we'll start talking a little bit about that Medicaid po...

Medicaid, Food as Medicine, and the Future of Coverage with Kelly Munson

Transcript

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Medicaid, Food as Medicine, and the Future of Coverage with Kelly Munson

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.