Our Approach to Improve Health and Control Cost

High-Burden Health Conditions and Evidence-Based Interventions

Key points

To improve health and control costs, ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø is prioritizing these six high-burden health conditions and effective interventions.

Prevention Unintended Pregnancy

  • Reimburse providers for the full range of contraceptive services (e.g., screening for pregnancy intention; counseling; insertion, removal, replacement, or reinsertion of long-acting reversible contraceptives, and follow-up) for women of childbearing age.
  • Reimburse providers for the actual cost of FDA-approved contraceptive methods.
  • Unbundle payment for long-acting reversible contraceptives from other postpartum services.
  • Remove administrative barriers to receipt of contraceptive services (e.g., pre-approval step therapy restriction, barriers to high acquisition and stocking costs).

Control High Blood Pressure

  • Implement strategies that improve adherence to anti-hypertensive and lipid-lowering prescription medications via expanded access to:
    • low cost medication copayments, fixed dose medication combinations, and extended medication fills;
    • innovative pharmacy packaging;
    • improved care coordination using standardized protocols, primary care teams, medication therapy management programs, and self-monitoring of blood pressure with clinical support.
  • Provide home blood pressure monitors to patients with high blood pressure and reimburse for the clinical support services required for self-measured blood pressure monitoring.

Reduce Tobacco Use

  • Increase access to tobacco cessation treatments, including individual, group, and telephone counseling, and Food and Drug Administration-approved cessation medications (in accordance with the 2008 Public Health Service Clinical Practice Guidelines and the 2015 U.S. Preventive Services Task Force recommendations).
  • Remove barriers that impede access to covered cessation treatments, such as cost-sharing and prior authorization.
  • Promote increased use of covered treatment benefits by tobacco users.

Control Asthma

  • Use the 2007 National Asthma Education and Prevention Program as clinical practice guidelines.
  • Promote strategies that improve access and adherence to asthma medications and devices.
  • Expand access to intensive self-management education by licensed professionals or qualified lay health workers for patients whose asthma is not well-controlled with medical management.
  • Expand access to home visits by licensed professionals or qualified lay health workers to provide intensive self-management education and reduce home asthma triggers for patients whose asthma is not well-controlled with medical management and self-management education.

Improve Antibiotic Use

  • Require antibiotic stewardship programs in all hospitals and skilled nursing facilities, in alignment with ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø's Core Elements of Hospital Antibiotic Stewardship Programs and The Core Elements of Antibiotic Stewardship for Nursing Homes.
  • Improve outpatient antibiotic prescribing by incentivizing providers to follow ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø's Core Elements of Outpatient Antibiotic Stewardship.

Prevent Type 2 Diabetes

  • Expand access to the National Diabetes Prevention Program, a lifestyle change program for preventing type 2 diabetes.