Becker’s Payer Issues Podcast Advancing Culturally Competent Medicare Advantage with Karen Walker Johnson of Clever Care Health Plan
Mar 2, 2026
Karen Walker-Johnson, CEO of Clever Care Health Plan and former nurse, leads culturally competent, value-based Medicare Advantage care. She discusses building provider trust with reliability and transparency. She describes collaborative member outreach, community-centered engagement, and the push for cultural competence metrics to shape quality measures and funding.
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Cultural Competence Is Core To Care
- Clever Care centers cultural competence as core care, not an add-on, to improve access and outcomes for Medicare Advantage members.
- The plan hires bilingual providers, blends Eastern and Western medicine, and serves ~46,000 members with language-aligned services.
Show Up For Providers Reliably
- Build provider trust by being reliable, transparent, and paying claims accurately and on time.
- Clever Care prioritizes stable benefits and proper adjudication so providers have one less operational worry amid workforce and cost pressures.
Deploy Outreach Staff To Support Clinicians
- Share operational responsibilities with providers by staffing outreach teams that coordinate with physicians on member engagement.
- Clever Care employs outreach staff who contact patients in collaboration with clinicians to improve outcomes.