I found out that I was pregnant,

and the doctor gave me an ultrasound.

You know, you're going to see the baby whatever,

it's going to be a normal thing.

Yeah, it's normal, until you look over and you see

it's two…it's two babies here.

I jumped up, I cried.

I called my mom crying, jumping up. I was panicking.

And she said, "Mom, it's two babies."

She's like, "What am I gonna do?"

And I started laughing immediately.

And I was like, there's two babies. I was like,

"Oh my gosh! That's such a blessing. You're blessed.

Like, don't feel nervous. You have support.

You have family that are going to be there to help you."

Hi, I'm Brielle. I'm from New Jersey, born and raised.

I'm in nursing school.

I work. And I have twin daughters.

So the first complication that I ran into was…

I was bleeding.

You never really expect to need health care until you need it.

The children needed special care and I needed special care.

I started, you know, being concerned, like hey you know,

the bills and how's the medical care going to be?

I phoned into Horizon NJ Health.

She spoke like she had children. She's been here, done that. Very nurturing,

very assured in her position, in that she can provide me with what I needed.

And she reassured me that everything was going to be taken care of.

When I realized that I wasn't on my own

with health care and medical expenses,

it took so much weight off of my shoulders.

The twins now are active. They're intelligent. They're social.

They are amazing.

Being a single mom of twins is motivation.

I have two girls. I want more for my daughters. I want to excel.

I want to be a great example.

I want them to look at me as, "My mom is strong."

So, it pushes me to show them what a successful woman can be.

And what they can grow up to be.

Medicaid does get a bad rap. Saying, you know,

"You're only going to have this."

Or you're just going to be part of the…a number.

I was definitely not a number. I was a customized experience.

I was shocked. So, I was like, okay, we're going to see how long this goes.

Is the pediatrician going to be this great?

Is the facility, the hospital going to be this great?

It just kept getting better and better.

Having Horizon NJ Health, you know, guide me to great doctors,

great health care, great facilities, you know.

That's what I'm grateful for.

So there are seven children in my family. And I'm third in line.

When we lost our father, I was ten.

Mom became a single mom of seven kids.

She cooked every night. She never missed a holiday.

Honestly, I don't know how she did everything that she did for us.

My mother has Alzheimer's.

My mother was very combative. And she was extremely suspicious.

And that's all part of it.

I had to make a decision.

I put her into an assisted living facility.

I saw her every day, took her outside for walks.

And then COVID hit.

We were told that we had two days

that we had left to see anyone we loved in the facility.

And now I had to see my mother through a window.

And I saw her losing hope.

The only thing I knew to do was to call my mom's case worker.

She said to me, "Do you want to take your mother home?"

I said, "Yes, I do. But I'm afraid

because I don't know how to take care of an Alzheimer's patient."

She told me there would be a nurse from Horizon calling me.

Two minutes later, Megan called me.

Megan told me that she would see this through all the way.

Megan told me everything I needed to do.

I thought that Horizon was just, you go to the doctor, they're going to cover the expense.

You pay your copay, they're going to pay for the prescriptions.

It's a health insurance.

It offered so much more than that.

It offered help and caring and being there every step of the way.

My mother gets her medicines.

My mother gets a nurse.

My mother gets aides.

My mother has gotten a hospital bed, a wheelchair.

Anything that I've ever needed is here the next day.

When I brought my mom home, she didn't even know who I was.

A few months into her being here,

I heard my name for the first time.

When we were growing up, my mom always had Sunday dinners.

So, I have Sunday dinners. My sons come

with their wives and all the grandbabies.

She sees them, and she lights up.

She just loves those children.

They're a part of her life, and she's a part of theirs now.

My son, I'll find him slow dancing with her.

And she is just breathing in every moment.

It takes a village to take care of an aging parent.

Horizon and Lynn and Megan are my village.

The hardest part of COVID honestly as a worker

was seeing how incredibly hard it was for our members.

We’re nurses, we are social workers, we are friends.

We’re advocates.

Members who were vulnerable before.

Now who are extremely more vulnerable.

I kept hearing about members who just… they didn’t have food.

And so I contacted care managers.

I found out which members really didn’t have anything

and didn’t have anyone to do it for them.

My job is to know what the resources are out in the community

and to find whatever resources people need.

It wasn’t a matter of them getting COVID, but they weren’t following up for

their high blood pressure. Which is now getting worse.

There were a lot of folks who were out in the community who just needed help.

Older member, she does not speak English,

lived by herself, has no family around.

And she had no…no groceries.

I was not able to get chicken or anything,

but I had enough in my house.

So I took some out of my refrigerator.

We had a circumstance where there was a member who

had no toilet paper in her house.

One of our care managers, Dina,

she saw the address of who we were looking to help.

And she actually went to, I think five, five…

five stores looking for it, and there was none.

And so, she actually had her own supply,

she took some prepackaged water, too. And without hesitation,

just drove over and dropped it off

And those are the people that we work with.

If we have to go above and beyond to assisting them,

we’re willing to do it.

Members will definitely look back at this time

of the COVID pandemic and know that we were there for them

and advocated for them on a regular basis.

I just want to make sure people understand that

Horizon and specifically, I know MLTSS and D-SNP,

and the programs that I'm around on a daily basis,

it's more than just a company.

It’s people who really care about you

and want to do whatever they can to make your life better.