Expenditure Reductions Associated with a Social Service Referral Program.

Recent health system innovations provide encouraging evidence that greater coordination of medical and social services can improve health outcomes and reduce health care expenditures. This study evaluated the savings associated with a managed care organization's call center-based social service referral program that aimed to assist participants address their social needs, such as homelessness, transportation barriers, and food insecurity. The program evaluation linked social service referral data with health care claims to analyze expenditures in 2 annual periods, before and after the first social service referral.