The State of Connecticut, in partnership with the Yale University School of Medicine and the Hartford-based Hispanic Health Council, has been selected to receive a five-year federal grant of up to $10 million to improve residents’ health and lower taxpayer’s costs by helping Medicaid patients to quit smoking.
"This innovative program is encouraging Connecticut and other states to try new approaches to fight chronic diseases that destroy people’s health and cost taxpayers millions of dollars," CT Lt. Governor Nancy Wyman said. "By using new methods to encourage Medicaid participants to quit smoking, we can make real improvements in their health and help the state’s fiscal bottom line."
DSS Commissioner Roderick L. Bremby said the iQuit program aims to reduce smoking rates among the 25%-to-30% of state Medicaid beneficiaries who currently use tobacco. "Pregnant women, mothers of newborns, and individuals with mental illness will be a special focus of the program," Bremby said. "The timing is especially good because we are getting close to the January 1 start of smoking cessation services as a covered benefit in Connecticut’s Medicaid program."
The iQuit program will encourage both smokers and medical providers to participate in counseling and training sessions, peer coaching and other smoking-cessation techniques. Financial incentives are used to encourage smokers to attend these sessions and to achieve objective, verifiable goals in reducing tobacco use.
The program will also coordinate with the state’s restructured health care delivery system. On January 1, 2012, DSS will move from a managed-care system to an ‘administrative services organization’ structure, which emphasizes a person-centered, medical home model of care.
"By delivering incentives within person-centered medical homes, obstetrics practices and local mental health authorities, we will leverage important changes in health care delivery under the Affordable Care Act," said a project summary written by the grant application’s author, DSS Medical Care Administration Director Mark Schaefer.
The project at Yale will be led by Principal Investigator Dr. Jody L. Sindelar and Investigator Dr. Susan H. Busch, both professors in the Yale School of Public Health.