MHA Press Room

Mississippi and other states receive grants to expand health coverage assistance programs

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services recently awarded 14 states and the District of Columbia $127,000 each to help strengthen programs that help consumers enroll in health coverage and file complaints and appeals against health plans. The states are: Connecticut, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Vermont.

The recipients successfully completed the first Consumer Assistance Program grant cycle and will use the additional funds to expand their consumer assistance activities, CMS said.

Survey: More employers targeting chronic conditions

A growing number of large employers are taking action to combat chronic health conditions to mitigate costs and improve the health of their workforce, according to a new survey by Hewitt Associates. Their efforts go beyond general condition management programs to pinpoint the most prevalent chronic illnesses among their employees. Three-quarters of the 343 large U.S. employers surveyed are targeting diabetes, 69% are targeting cardiovascular disease, 56% are targeting asthma and 32% are targeting depression. However, only a small percentage of eligible workers actually participate in these condition management programs, and their long-term success will depend on changes in participant behavior, Hewitt said.

Initiative calls on doctors to prescribe exercise

The American Medical Association and American College of Sports Medicine on Nov. 5 called on doctors to prescribe exercise to their patients. Their “Exercise is Medicine” initiative will advise able patients to participate in at least 30 minutes of physical activity and 10 minutes of stretching and light muscle training five days a week.

It includes a Web site with educational materials and toolkits physicians can use in their practices, as well as information for policymakers and the public. Only four in 10 doctors currently talk to their patients about exercise, according to a recent ACSM survey.

“We encourage physicians to talk to their patients about the importance of exercise and to work with them to establish programs they can start today and continue throughout their lives,” said AMA President Ronald Davis, M.D.

HHS issues long-range plan to personalize health care

The Department of Health and Human Services on Sept. 19 issued a long-range plan for achieving more individualized care for patients, especially using genetic information and health information technology. The report describes challenges and pathways to more personalized medicine and related programs underway at HHS to identify genetic elements in disease, translate scientific discoveries into clinical practice, share data on the best treatments, and develop standards to securely exchange electronic health data.

“Where once physicians had to practice medicine much like an art form, using macroscopic tools to alleviate symptoms, personalized health care will provide molecular tools and information technology support to deliver care with greater precision, confidence and individualization,” the report says.

[ via AHA News Now ]

Employers report on wellness programs

A new study by the Business Roundtable examines employee wellness initiatives at 73 large U.S. employers. More than half of the programs have been in place five or more years, while 20% were created in the past two years and several were expected to begin this year.

Program offerings include on-site flu shots (97%), health fairs and on-site screenings (91%), nurse/health advice lines (84%), health risk assessments (80%), on-site workout facilities (73%), online resources (72%), and organized walks or other activities (66%). Many companies reinforced their wellness programs with financial incentives tied to health plan premiums or health-related savings accounts, or with disease management, tobacco cessation or weight management programs.

[ via AHA News Now ]

Employers offer wellness incentives

U.S. employers are using increasingly sophisticated incentives to encourage workers to participate in health and disease management programs, according to a new survey by the National Association of Manufacturers and ERISA Industry Council. Three-quarters of 242 respondents offered health management programs to employees, and many of them lower premiums for those who participate.

Other incentives for employees to participate included cash/bonuses, health account contributions, merchandise and gift cards. Two-thirds of employers offering incentives for participation had not measured the return on their investment, but most that did thought the incentives were cost-effective.

The most serious challenge they faced was maintaining employee motivation over time.

[ via AHA News Now ]

Survey Assesses Knowledge and Awareness About Health Initiatives

A new nationally representative poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation examines what the public took away from President Bush's State of the Union address, finding that the health messages in the speech have yet to register with most Americans.

Forty-one percent of people say they watched or listened to the speech,and the President's emphasis on health care costs in the health portions of the speech came through to almost half of them. But almost half of those who heard the address incorrectly thought that the President talked about the implementation of the new Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Despite extensive news coverage before and after the speech about the President's proposals for expanding the use of Health Savings Accounts(HSAs),the poll suggests a steep learning curve for the public on these new insurance arrangements. Seven out of 10 people (71%) say they have not heard of the term "health savings account" or do not know what the term means. When presented with three possible definitions,38% correctly identified a description of the accounts as allowing people to set aside tax-free dollars to pay for routine health costs not covered by high-deductible insurance plans.

The President's discussion of the domestic HIV/AIDS epidemic went largely unnoticed by a substantial majority of the public.  When asked if the President emphasized the HIV epidemic in the United States, 88% of people said he did not or they didn’t know if he had. Even among those who report watching or listening to the State of the Union address, 77% did not realize he had talked about this topic. About nine out of 10 people did not know that the President proposed reforming and reauthorizing the Ryan White CARE Act (which provides funding for HIV/AIDS care and prevention), ending waiting lists for HIV drugs or increasing HIV testing through African American faith based organizations in his speech.

More than half (52%) of all Americans said they learned the most about what the President said about health care from pundits or news reports,suggesting that what people have heard or read about the speech may shape their views even more than the speech itself.

The poll was conducted February 2-7,2006 as part of the Foundation's bi-monthly Health Poll Report survey, with a nationally representative sample of 1,203 adults age 18 and older.  The margin of sampling error is plus or minus three percentage points.  Toplines and chartpack

are now available online.