Linda Hines, Virginia’s Medicaid Market President at Humana

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Becker’s Healthcare Podcast
Guest: Linda Hines, Virginia Medicaid Market President, Humana
Host: Elizabeth Kaslow
Date: January 28, 2026
Episode Focus: Youth behavioral health efforts in Virginia’s Medicaid program, specifically the role of school partnerships, workforce expansion, and addressing social determinants of health.

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Elizabeth Kaslow interviews Linda Hines, the Medicaid Market President for Humana in Virginia. The discussion centers on innovative strategies for improving youth behavioral health in Virginia, particularly through school-based initiatives, workforce development, and multi-sector partnerships aimed at addressing broader community needs within the Medicaid population.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Linda Hines’ Background and Approach

• Nursing roots and leadership journey:
  • Linda began her career as a registered nurse, transitioning from clinical care into hospital administration and ultimately health plan leadership.
  • She highlights the value of clinical experience in shaping effective healthcare leadership.
    • “That clinical experience really shaped my experience to move more into the operations piece. And I think having that, I'm more of an effective leader in this space at this time.” (C, 02:33)

School-Based Behavioral Health Initiatives

• Combatting access barriers:
  • The primary challenge is distance and travel inhibiting students from obtaining behavioral health services, especially in rural areas.
  • Many Medicaid families are working, making it difficult to access traditional appointment times.
• Strategic partnerships:
  • Humana’s partnership with the Virginia Healthcare Foundation focuses on delivering school-based therapy and growing the workforce of behavioral health providers.
  • Through the “Nurture NAM” program, Humana invested $2.5 million (with a continued yearly commitment) to support access and provider training.
    • “We truly believe if we can provide that care in the schools, while we have that captured audience, it's more effective. They don't have to worry about transportation.” (C, 03:33)
• Provider pipeline development:
  • The grant supports licensing practitioners, enabling hands-on practicum in schools, both shadowing licensed professionals and beginning to deliver therapy.
  • Direct impact: Over 1,200 students served at six schools with 2,900 behavioral and medical visits.
    • “We are helping more practitioners to become licensed and then be able to get their practicum done while they are providing the therapy in the school.” (C, 04:52)

Broader Impact on Youth Health & Outcomes

• Maximizing utilization:
  • Linda challenges the misconception that managed care limits utilization, emphasizing a proactive approach:
    • “Quite the opposite. We really want people to utilize these services because when they do, we see the opportunity to identify other areas.” (C, 06:16)
• Comprehensive effect:
  • School-based behavioral interventions open doors to addressing medical needs, increase immunization rates/well-child visits, reduce anxiety, improve medication compliance, and lower school absences.
  • Long-term benefits include improved quality of life for students, parents, and the community.
    • “Mental status really touches a lot of different points. Improves the quality of life for not only the students, but the parents as well as the community.” (C, 07:23)

Addressing Gaps & Social Determinants of Health

• Multi-pronged initiatives:
  • Humana does not directly deliver care but supports provider partners, addressing gaps from healthcare access to social determinants.
  • Key areas: housing, nutrition, transportation, and “baby care” programs focusing on prenatal and early childhood health.
    • “We also look at housing needs, food and nutrition needs. The transportation, again, is very important.” (C, 08:10)
• Facilitating access:
  • Providing information on benefits, removing barriers to utilization, and coordinating with food banks and housing specialists to address immediate and systemic needs.

Advice for Industry Leaders

• Community & youth engagement:
  • Linda highlights listening to all stakeholders, especially youth, to understand their current challenges (e.g., AI, social media pressures).
  • Recommends holding focus groups, listening sessions, and communicating directly with youth, parents, and providers to fully understand and remove barriers.
    • “Listen to the community and your members ... it's also important to talk to our youth and to understand what are the challenges.” (C, 09:47)
• Provider partnership:
  • Encourages being “good stewards” and actively reducing provider abrasion to empower the workforce and expand reach.

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• “That clinical experience really shaped my experience to move more into the operations piece.” — Linda Hines (02:33)
• “We truly believe if we can provide that care in the schools ... it's more effective.” — Linda Hines (03:33)
• “We are helping more practitioners to become licensed ... while they are providing the therapy in the school.” — Linda Hines (04:52)
• “We really want people to utilize these services because when they do, we see the opportunity to identify other areas.” — Linda Hines (06:16)
• “Mental status really touches a lot of different points. Improves the quality of life for not only the students, but the parents as well as the community.” — Linda Hines (07:23)
• “We also look at housing needs, food and nutrition needs ... The transportation, again, is very important.” — Linda Hines (08:10)
• “It's also important to talk to our youth and to understand what are the challenges.” — Linda Hines (09:47)
• “Be really good stewards of what we've been entrusted ... be good partners with all of our stakeholders.” — Linda Hines (10:24)

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Timestamps of Important Segments

• 00:59 – 02:48: Linda Hines’ professional background and leadership journey
• 03:03 – 04:22: School-based behavioral health efforts & partnerships
• 04:51 – 05:48: Growing the behavioral health workforce & impact metrics
• 06:13 – 07:37: Effects on broader health outcomes (utilization, preventive care, attendance)
• 07:52 – 09:29: Addressing gaps, social supports, and the scope of Humana’s Medicaid programs
• 09:43 – 10:42: Leadership advice—listening, engagement, and partnership

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Tone & Language

Linda Hines speaks with warmth, clarity, and a collaborative spirit, emphasizing community engagement, partnership, and a holistic view of health. She is candid about challenges and optimistic about the impact of targeted interventions.

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Summary Takeaway

This episode underscores the crucial link between accessible behavioral health in schools, workforce development, and addressing broader social needs in the Medicaid youth population. Linda Hines’ insights reveal the necessity of genuine partnership—with schools, families, providers, and community organizations—and the importance of directly including youth voices in shaping responsive, effective healthcare strategies.

Transcript

[A]

This is where health insurance leadership comes together. Becker's 4th Annual Spring Payer Issues Roundtable brings together over 400 payer and health plan executives and more than 100 speakers to Chicago, April 13th and 14th. This year's event includes keynote conversations with the industry's top leaders and former President George W. Bush. For the full agenda and event details, visit Beckershospitalreview.com and click on the Events tab in the upper right. We're looking forward to hosting you here in Chicago.

[B]

Hello, everyone. This is Elizabeth Kaslow with the Becker's Payer Issues podcast. I'm thrilled today to be joined by Linda Hines, Virginia's Medicaid Market President for Humana. Linda, thank you so much for chatting with us today.

[C]

Good morning, Liz. Thank you so much for having me today.

[B]

Of course. So, before we dive in, can you tell us a bit more about yourself, your healthcare career background, and your current role at Humana?

[C]

Absolutely. So I always like to start off by saying I am a nurse by background. I am a registered nurse, and that's where I started my career, mostly on the provider side and hospital space. I had an opportunity to join Medicaid managed care specifically, oh, my goodness, back in 1996. So it's been 30 years ago, joined a very small health plan that was really just in the central Virginia market. At that time, we had only had about 3,000 members. And I actually joined them managing their medical management department, continued to stay with them, progressed through the ranks to become their vice president of clinical services, which encompassed everything clinical, pharmacy, quality, um, care management, credentialing, and stayed in that role for about 16 years, then moved into a chief operating role then, then to CEO of that health plan. When I left that health plan, we actually had grown from that 3,000 that we started with to well over 380,000 members. Went to another health plan, was the president of the Virginia Medicaid market, the dual special needs. And then now I am at Humana as the plan president specifically for the Health and Horizons, which is Medicaid and our integrated dual special needs planning. So, you know, that's quite a journey. I know I often get asked, how did you move from clinical, so to speak, into the more administrative? But I do think that it all fits together. That clinical experience really shaped my experience to move more into the operations piece. And I think having that, I'm more of an effective leader in this space at this time.

[B]

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So today we're going to chat a bit about your market's youth Behavioral health efforts and schools are a cornerstone of those efforts. From what I've been reading. Can you elaborate a bit on your partnerships and initiatives taking place in those settings? Sure.

[C]

So we often see how distance and travel can truly impact our members being able to specifically access those services. Many of our parents, contrary to popular belief, they are working and it is challenging for them to get off during the day. We have formed a partnership with the Virginia Healthcare foundation to focus really on meeting the critical needs of behavioral health services for our youth in our communities, especially in those rural communities. We invested $2.5 million in the Nurture NAM program and specifically that program, through the Virginia Healthcare foundation, supports the delivery of school based therapy and the pipeline to actually grow the behavioral health provider workforce. We truly believe if we can provide that care in the schools, while we have that captured audience, it's more effective. They don't have to worry about transportation. Many times they'll the parents do not have to worry about taking off from work. We are able to be more effective. So in 2023, Humana actually invested 500,000 in that and we will continue to invest each year as the program grows.

[B]

I can also imagine having these resources in schools, even parents aside, and transportation access there. It's also easier to keep kids in schools and not have them physically leave that space too. You did mention growing the behavioral health workfor. So those challenges are prevalent across the country. Can you elaborate a bit more about what Humana Healthy Horizons in Virginia is doing to address this, especially when it comes to specialists for the youth population?

[C]

So, yes, so this particular grant, actually the Nurture now grant that we're working with the Virginia Healthcare foundation, not only is it providing the therapy in the schools, but then we are helping more practitioners to become licensed and then be able to get their practicum done while they are providing the therapy in the school. So they're working with people who are already licensed, shadowing them, as well as starting to provide some of the therapy so that they can become licensed. And to date they have been successful in really treating a total of over 1200 students at six schools and providing 2,900 behavioral health visits as well as medical visits. So that has increased our ability to really reach more students with increasing the number of practitioners in schools.

[B]

As a follow up to that, I'm curious, what are you seeing in the long term with working with these providers and being able to build out a more robust base of providers? How are you seeing that interplay with other aspects of healthcare outcomes for youth? Is it Changing utilization costs. What are you seeing there.

[C]

Liz? I think all of the above. I think that the metrics that we look at, yes, of course, it's utilization. And when we say utilization, I know a lot of people think for managed care, that's keeping people from utilizing the services. Quite the opposite. We really want people to utilize these services because when they do, we see the opportunity to identify other areas. It's not just behavioral, it's also their medical concerns, primary care concerns. And so we're able to do that. Then that has increased preventive care as well. We're seeing children receive more of their immunizations, their, well, child visits. It decreases anxiety. We are able to get people really off of medications if they don't need them or to improve compliance with their medication, which is also very important. We also measure things like days absence from school. We've seen a decrease in that for our children, more compliant with their schoolwork, being able to sit and listen and participate in the classroom. So it really has a very far reaching effect that when we think about sometimes just the healthcare, you're thinking only about, well, has it improved their mental status? Well, mental status really touches a lot of different points. Improves the quality of life for not only the students, but the parents as well as the community.

[B]

That's great to hear. And thinking more broadly, at least in the communities that you're serving. I know you mentioned rural Virginia. What sorts of supports are most lacking for youth in Medicaid and how is your team working to address those gaps?

[C]

So really it is about the partnerships. You know, we don't deliver direct care. It is through the support that we can provide to our providers, to our community partners that also touch the social determinants of health and social factors. So yes, we need to grow the behavioral health pipeline of providers as well as our medical pipeline providers. But we also look at housing needs, food and nutrition needs. The transportation, again, is very important. And so our initiatives focus, yes, on all of the health care needs, the benefits that we provide. We want to make sure that people understand those benefits, that they are availing themselves of those benefits. But we also look what are the barriers that are keeping people from utilizing those, from getting the services. And we try to fill in that gap. We have housing specialists that are not only looking for the particular partnerships, but then if someone has an immediate need. We work closely with the food pantries, we've worked with our food banks to look at the food as medicine initiatives. We have lots of baby care programs. And those baby care programs go beyond Making sure that our members are getting great prenatal care, because that's really where it starts. We need to make sure that they're getting that care, but what's keeping them from receiving that care so that they can have a healthy birth outcome and also get connected to those services so that the children will continue to receive services throughout their span of time.

[B]

So as we wrap up, I would love to hear what advice you have for other industry leaders, particularly those in the Medicaid space, when it comes to handling issues with youth, behavioral health and establishing those partnerships.

[C]

One, I would say really listen to your partners. Listen to the community and your members. When I say members, yes, it's important that we talk to the parents, but it's also important to talk to our youth and to understand what are the challenges. Going to school today is a lot different. I will say, when we were in school, just even all the AI challenges, the social media, all the other things that will impact it. So we like to listen to, you know, what are they facing and how can we help? Where are the gaps? Start there. You know, whether you do focus groups or it's just a listening session. And of course, our providers, what are they seeing in the community? How can we decrease provider abrasion for them so that they can treat and see more of our members? So I would just say be really good stewards of what we've been entrusted, especially in the Commonwealth of Virginia, but also to be good partners with all of our stakeholders.

[B]

I absolutely love that point about making sure the youth voice is included and heard. Well, thank you so much, Linda, for chatting with us today. We really appreciate having you on.

[C]

Thank you so much again for having me.

[B]

And to our listeners, if you'd like to listen to more podcasts from Becker's Healthcare, you can visit Beckershospitalreview.com thank you.