NBCH Releases: Tobacco Cessation Efforts of Health Plans
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 – Tobacco cessation is one of the most
cost-effective activities an employer can implement to improve the health and
productivity of their employees while reducing health care costs. To help
employers in this effort, the non-profit National Business Coalition on Health
today released its report on health plan performance related to tobacco
cessation. The report finds that health plans are playing an important role in
administering smoking cessation benefits and encouraging physicians and other
providers to focus on smoking cessation through education, tools, and
incentives.
Using data from the eValue8(TM) Request for Information (RFI) tool which
examines current health plan performance for a variety of areas including
tobacco cessation, the report illustrates how employers can leverage health
plan services to help their employees to quit smoking. NBCH’s eValue8 is the
nation’s leading standardized RFI tool used by employers and coalitions to
measure and compare health plan performance from more than 100 health plans
and health insurers. Over 100 million Americans, or two in every three
Americans insured through an employer, are members of health plans that
respond to eValue8. Publicly available, the report can be accessed on NBCH’s
website.
eValue8 establishes benchmarks, along with specific performance scores of
health plans which are then used by employers and local business coalitions to
identify opportunities for improvement in their tobacco cessation programs.
Specifically related to tobacco cessation programming, no health plan achieves
100 percent of the points allocated by eValue8 and about half of the plans
achieve 50 percent or better, with 17 percent of plans scoring 75 percent or
above.
“Tobacco cessation is a complex issue for employers and health plans,” said
Dennis White, Senior Vice President for Value-Based Purchasing, NBCH. “There
is a significant process from identification of individuals needing support to
successful treatment. eValue8 findings show that 80 percent of health plans
are adopting evidence-based benefit design and are incorporating counseling
and the use of FDA-approved medication with positive results.”
The report illustrates the importance of active employer engagement in their
own workplace programs. Employer activities including the development of
programs and policies and the design of health benefits augment those of the
health delivery system. With the evidence of both the cost impact of tobacco
use and the successful design for support programs for cessation, employers
can work in collaboration with health plans to promote this benefit and the
related policies and communications.
Webinar on tobacco cessation strategies
As part of its education efforts, NBCH is also co-sponsoring and participating
in a webinar hosted by the National Working Group for ACTTION highlighting the
critical role that employers, insurers and benefits managers play in fostering
access to and coverage for comprehensive tobacco cessation treatments for
smokers looking to quit. The webinar, Evaluating the Effectiveness and
Cost-Savings of Tobacco Use Treatment Programs in the Workplace, will be held
October 22, 2009 from 12:30 – 1:30 p.m. (ET). Participants will include Diane
Canova, Managing Senior Fellow and Senior Tobacco Program Officer with the
Partnership for Prevention (on behalf of the National Working Group for
ACTTION), Bob Merberg, Wellness Program Manager for Paychex, Inc. and Dennis
White. For additional details or to register for the webinar, please visit:
http://www.eventsvc.com/action/.
This program is supported in part by Pfizer Inc. The National Working Group
for ACTTION (Access to Cessation Treatment for Tobacco In Our Nation) is an
action-oriented group of national stakeholders brought together to enhance
access to evidence-based tobacco-use treatments.
The NBCH eValue8 report was written by NBCH consultant’s Suzanne Mercure and
Liza Greenberg with data provided by Laura Jacobus Kantor of the George
Washington University Center for Integrated Behavioral Health Policy and
funded by Pfizer, Inc. as part of the NBCH Tobacco Cessation project.
About the National Business Coalition on Health
NBCH is a national, non-profit, membership organization of nearly 60
employer-based health care coalitions, representing over 7,000 employers and
approximately 25 million employees and their dependents across the United
States. NBCH and its members are dedicated to value based purchasing of health
care services through the collective action of public and private purchasers.
NBCH will host its annual employer conference November 8-10, 2009 in
Scottsdale, AZ. For additional information visit: www.nbch.org.
SOURCE National Business Coalition on Health
Cary Conway, +1-972-731-9242, cary(at)conwaycommunication.com, for National
Business Coalition on Health
