The Community Foundation is excited to continue our Leaders of the Future series, highlighting the work and experiences of incredible individuals and organizations from across our community of philanthropic, community, professional advisor, corporate, and nonprofit partners.
This month, we’re pleased to feature Dr. Yavar Moghimi, Chief Psychiatric Medical Officer at AmeriHealth Caritas. Dr. Moghimi has spent much of his career serving individuals at the intersection of health and homelessness and sits on the Leadership Council of the Partnership to End Homelessness.
$770 Million. According to the DC Fiscal Policy Institute, that is how much it will cost to ensure everyone in DC has a place to live by 2030.
While that number may seem high, it’s less than half of what healthcare systems expect to pay over the same time period.
“Part of our role as a healthcare plan is to manage costs to the system and encourage positive health outcomes,” explained Dr. Yavar Moghimi, Chief Psychiatric Medical Officer at AmeriHealth Caritas. “Individuals who are housing insecure or homeless represent one of the largest costs to the healthcare system.”
The relationship between housing and healthcare has long burdened both those experiencing homelessness and the healthcare professionals who care for them. A recent study found that those experiencing homelessness are twice as likely to visit an emergency room than those who are housed – some of them as often as five times per year.
These visits can cost healthcare systems as much as $44,000 per year -- per person. With nearly 10,000 individuals experiencing homelessness in the DMV, the annual cost to the healthcare system ranges in the hundreds of millions of dollars. By 2030, homelessness could cost the healthcare system up to $2.6 billion.
“As a healthcare provider, it’s difficult to treat homelessness,” Dr. Moghimi explained. “We can treat symptoms – but until we are able to properly identify and address people’s needs, those who are housing insecure will continue to migrate from one acute care situation to another.”
Screening for Social Determinants of Health: Knowledge is Power
As a psychiatrist and addiction specialist with more than a decade of clinical experience in Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHC) in DC, Dr. Moghimi has spent much of his career serving individuals at the intersection between health and homelessness.
While working at places like Whitman-Walker Health and So Others Might Eat, Dr. Moghimi saw how healthcare providers were able to conduct screenings to identify a patient’s needs within the social determinants of health (SDOH).
SDOH screenings (known in the healthcare industry as Z Codes), are a relatively new innovation to healthcare that only became official practice starting in 2016. It allows healthcare professionals to add notes to a patient’s medical record for when a patient displays symptoms that don’t point to a specific medical concern, but still warrant treatment. These Z Codes include Homelessness, Problems related to employment or unemployment, Occupational Exposure to Risk Factors, Problems related to Education and Literacy, and others.
As a clinician, the information gleaned from these screenings was critical, as it allowed Dr. Moghimi to more effectively meet the immediate mental health needs of his patients. However, he also found that the system often stopped short of solving the problem.
“Most FQHC’s don’t have capacity to do the kind of long-term engagement needed to help patients progress,” Dr. Moghimi explained. “They would put the record in the system, but without someone to follow-up and work with patients to connect them with resources like housing and employment, that information doesn’t have any long-term impact.”
Now as the Chief Psychiatric Medical Officer at AmeriHealth Caritas and a member of the DC Interagency Council for Homelessness Health Subcommittee, Dr. Moghimi has been advocating for better integration between the healthcare providers and community partners providing homeless services.
“What we need is a liaison,” Dr. Moghimi added. “Someone who can utilize the data that we’re collecting to connect patients with the long-term support and resources they need to improve their health and wellbeing.”
The liaison position(s) would require external funding to support – as it falls outside of the hospital’s traditional staffing structure. As a member of the Partnership Leadership Council, Dr. Moghimi is working with government, philanthropic, and community partners to identify the right organizations and grant opportunities that could make it possible.
“The Community Foundation and the Partnership to End Homelessness play a huge role in bringing people together and building the bridges that make it possible for us to meet the needs and challenges facing our community,” Dr. Moghimi said. “This is the ecosystem we want to be a part of – one that builds stronger, and healthier communities, today, tomorrow, and into the future!”
The Community Foundation is proud to partner with Dr. Yavar Moghimi, AmeriHealth Caritas and other incredible community, corporate and philanthropic leaders on our Partnership to End Homelessness Leadership Council. For more information about how you or your organization can get involved, contact Jennifer Olney, Senior Program Officer for the Partnership to End Homelessness.