It is well known that cigarette smokers die ten years sooner and feel ten years older than their non-smoking peers. Much of that life span and quality of life span can be recovered with effective tobacco treatment. You may be surprised to learn that effective treatment of tobacco can generate revenue for your practice or health system.
National and regional data show that physicians are not effective in helping patients quit smoking, says Dr. Edward Anselm, author of a recent paper in Health Affairs Forefront. Doctors consistently miss opportunities to provide treatment. National Guidelines detail evidence-based treatments for patients that can be provided at every visit, regardless of readiness to change. In a recent multicenter study only 2% of patients received counseling.
The other key element in treatment is the use of medication, which in numerous studies rarely exceeded 17%. These gaps in care hurt revenue in one of two ways:
Data on the effectiveness of your practice can be obtained from your EMR or Healthix data set. The codes to perform this analysis yourselves are found here: Measurement of Tobacco Treatment — Edward Anselm, MD
We want to highlight your success stories. Please send your comments, questions or suggestions to Dr. Anselm at [email protected].
Although New York has performed better than most other states in reducing the prevalence of cigarette smoking to 12% of adults, smoking in New York remains a major public health problem. Each year 28,200 adults die from tobacco related disease. Smoking kills more people than alcohol, AIDS, car crashes, illegal drugs, murders, and suicides combined. And there is an economic cost as well: the annual health care costs in New York directly caused by smoking are $12.07 billion and smoking-caused productivity losses in New York are estimated at $18.2 billion. Treatment of tobacco is the most direct way to continue progress in improving outcomes and controlling costs.
Unfortunately, national data shows that physicians are not providing effective treatment regularly. The National Commission for Quality Assurance (NCQA) will soon release a new HEDIS measure that will measure performance in screening and treating tobacco use. This new measure to be implemented in 2026 will allow insurers, health systems and practicing physicians to align incentives and improve overall performance.
“We have an extra-ordinary opportunity to help shape a win/win scenarios for participants in the Healthix collaborative and their patients,” says Dr. Edward Anselm, a retired health plan medical director now focused on systems change in tobacco treatment.
Healthix data can easily be organized into practice management and quality improvement tools to provide insights at the level of individual provider, clinic, and facility in a health system that can be benchmarked against other systems in the region.
Treatment of tobacco is the one of many types of quality improvement measures and public health indicators that can be shared collaboratively.
Dr. Anselm obtained his medical degree from the University of Health Sciences–The Chicago Medical School and completed an Internal Medicine Residency at Montefiore Medical Center. He has served in a variety of clinical and occupational settings including roles as Medical Director, Mount Sinai Health System, Center for Corporate Health; Corporate Medical Director/Vice President, Executive Health Group, National Health Services; Chief Medical Officer, HIP Health Plan of New York, and Chief Medical Officer FidelisCare New York. He retired from a position as Medical Director at Aetna in Florida.
Dr. Anselm continues to teach at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine where he holds the rank of Clinical Assistant Professor of Medicine. His areas of special interest are smoking cessation and tobacco control. Most recently, he has focused on reimbursement for tobacco cessation and has developed approaches to support medical practices in maximizing both outcomes and economic returns.
