Business Case for Smoking Cessation Website & ROI Calculator
AHIP and the Center for Health Research, Kaiser Permanente Northwest (CHR) have developed a business case that estimates the incremental return on investment (ROI) of evidence-based smoking cessation interventions for health insurance plans, payors and employers. The new website features a user-friendly web-based ROI Calculator www.businesscaseroi.org that estimates the impact of smoking cessation interventions for 1-5 years. The original research and translation was supported by an unrestricted educational grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and cooperative agreement funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention-Office of Smoking and Health.
ROI estimates were calculated using medical expenditures and electronic medical records data (including smoking status) of 200,000 health plan members with eligibility during 1997–2002. The interventions tested are based on the US Public Health Service Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence clinical practice guideline and include the “5 A’s”-Ask, Advise, Assess, Assist, Arrange- plus prescription medication and proactive telephone counseling.
Our findings demonstrate that investments in smoking cessation save money in the short term (2 years). This study validates that evidence-based programs can improve the health of smokers who quit and economically benefit health insurance plans and employers.
Results: Using the ROI Calculator, CHR researchers found that health plans investing $35–$410 per participant in a one-year program generated a positive ROI within 2 years. For the test health plan population, ROI per cessation service recipient for the plan was $750–$1,120 after 5 years. For employers, ROI was positive in all years, and totaled $100–$200 per participant after 5 years. The results indicate investments of $.18–$.79 pmpm generate positive net ROI of over $1.70–$2.20 after five years. Estimates were also calculated using data from a range of regional and national health insurance plans. While the ROI estimates varied somewhat depending on local variations in health care costs, smoking prevalence and disease rates, the results were positive.
To view the Business Case for Tobacco Cessation website and use the new interactive ROI Calculator, please click on the link below.
ROI CALCULATOR www.businesscaseroi.org
News and Resources
Tobacco Cessation Guideline and Implementation Tool Released
The U.S. Public Health Service released the Clinical Practice Guideline, Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence: 2008 Update, on May 7. This guideline describes how clinicians and health care systems can significantly reduce tobacco use prevalence by delivering evidence-based treatments to their patients who smoke.
Key findings of the guideline include:
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Brief Interventions – interventions exemplified by the "5 As" (ask, advise, assess, assist, arrange) and its variants are effective and cost-effective.
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Counseling – there is strong evidence that counseling is a critical part of smoking cessation (individual, group, and telephonic counseling) are effective.
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Medication – seven different smoking cessation medications have FDA approval.
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Policy – coordinated interventions involving patient, clinician, health care administrator, insurer, and purchaser are essential for success. Policy findings include providing tobacco dependence treatment as a covered insurance benefit, and offering clinician training coupled with other office system change.
To access the new guideline, please click here.
AMA-Sponsored Roundtable Spurs Recommendations for System-level Interventions in Tobacco Cessation
The American Medical Association (AMA) hosted the Management of Tobacco Dependence Roundtable on December 3-4, 2007, at the AMA headquarters in Chicago, IL. Experts in tobacco management and research, representatives from health care systems and payers, the AMA’s Council on Science and Public Health, the AMA’s Council on Medical Services, and the American Academy of Family Physicians discussed why the prevalence of smoking is not continuing to decline, and what, if anything, can health care systems
do to address this within the context of adult primary care. The roundtable sought to generate a wide range of opinions and ideas and to identify agreements, disagreements - and consensus if present. This paper summarizes the meeting’s discussion and presents the group’s recommendations for system-level interventions.
Smoking Cessation Roundtable AMA (.pdf)
AHIP Invitational Meeting-Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care-the Path Ahead: New Tobacco Control Challenges, Innovative Resources and the Application to Other Health Priorities
America’s Health Insurance Plans convened the 2005 Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care-The Path Ahead invitational meeting in September with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Invitees including AHIP member health insurance plans’ medical leadership, nationally recognized tobacco and health services researchers, medical specialty societies, government institutions, academic centers and policy makers focused on changing market realities facing health insurers, providers and employers, new return-on-investment decision support tools for tobacco cessation and the lessons learned from tobacco control and cessation that can be applied to the obesity epidemic.
To access the meeting’s website and presentation summaries, please click on the link below.
2005 ATMC-The Path Ahead Invitational Meeting
2005 ATMC - The Path Ahead Conference Report (.pdf)
AHIP and Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care
America’s Health Insurance Plans is managing a National Technical Assistance Office (NTAO) as part of a collaborative program, Addressing Tobacco in Managed Care (ATMC). This office receives multi-year support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF).Over the past eight years funding from RWJF has supported a series of AHIP initiatives within the ATMC framework. Several core activities of the ATMC project are also co-funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The goal of the NTAO is to advance the integration of tobacco cessation into health care by increasing the number and quality of tobacco control initiatives within health insurance plans. The NTAO’s responsibilities include: providing resources to health insurance plans striving to develop tobacco control programs; conducting an awards program to honor leadership and exemplary tobacco control initiatives among member companies; promoting new tobacco control strategies and partnerships through national conferences; and overseeing the development of a business case model for smoking cessation. The NTAO has also conducted four surveys of health insurance plans from 1997 to 2003 to assess tobacco control practices and policies across the nation.
