ArticleHealth affairs scholar2026
Design and early evaluation of a social care network's impact on health care costs.
Article in Health affairs scholar, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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0 citing papers in PubMed.
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Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Introduction: The Social Care Network (SCN) is a payor-provider-system integrated social care referral model designed to address historical challenges of scalability and sustainability through structured partnerships with community-based organizations (CBOs) and incentives for referral tracking and service delivery. Methods: To evaluate the effect of the SCN on completion of referral updates (ie, loop-closure), receipt of services, and medical costs and utilization, we conducted a quasi-experimental difference-in-differences analysis among insured adults referred to the SCN (8/2022-10/2024). Medical costs and utilization were compared between individuals who did and did not receive services. Program outcomes were compared between SCN and non-SCN CBOs. Results: Of 2305 SCN CBO referrals, 85% were closed-loop versus 24% of 8288 non-SCN CBO referrals ( Conclusions: These results suggest that a scalable, sustainable social care network can be implemented within a health system. Embedding community-based social care in value-based contracts aligns accountability across sectors, increases successful referrals, and reduces downstream medical costs.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.