Highmark Wholecare’s La Conexion Program Serves our Hispanic and Latino Members

This year, National Hispanic Heritage Month falls from September 15 to October 15. The month is a celebration of the history, traditions, contributions, and cultural diversity of Hispanic and Latino Americans tracing their roots to Spain, Mexico, Central America, South America, and the Spanish-speaking nations of the Caribbean. Highmark Wholecare has established La Conexion, a program built to address the unique coordination of care and social needs of our Hispanic and Latino members in the Reading area year-round. 

Since 2020, the La Conexion program has leveraged its strong local community and provider relationships to create a notable hub-and-spoke model of care. This model brings together a “hub” community organization, Centro Hispano, multiple “spoke” community-based organizations (CBOs), and leading provider, Reading Hospital, to support an embedded bilingual community health worker (CHW) in the City of Reading and surrounding area. 

These partnerships create a strong referral network, raise awareness for supports available within the Hispanic and Latino community, and leverage existing regional resources to meet health related social needs (HRSN) of our plan members.

The CHW engages with members both by phone and in-person throughout various settings within the community, including the Centro Hispano Senior Center, the Reading Housing Authority high-rise apartment buildings, and at community events. They can assist our Medicaid and DSNP members with their various needs including:

• Appointment scheduling
• Resolving care gaps
• Transportation
• Understanding health plan benefits
• Coordinating dental and vision care
• Connections to agencies and resources to offer housing and rental assistance, utility assistance, childcare, education and GED, and employment readiness

For more information or to refer a Highmark Wholecare member residing in the Reading area to the La Conexion program, please reach out to our CHW, Barbara Bonilla, at laconexion@highmarkwholecare.com.

Reference: Hispanic Heritage Month

La Conexion is a joint partnership between three organizations – Highmark Wholecare, Reading Hospital and Centro Hispano. Centro Hispano is a separate organization that provides life-enhancing programming for the Greater Reading community. Reading Hospital is a separate healthcare entity that provides medical care for people in need, including Highmark Wholecare members.