Reducing Tobacco Use in Oregon Through Multisector Collaboration: Aligning Medicaid and Public Health Programs

Tobacco use is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States. Oregon's coordinated care model for Medicaid provides an opportunity to consider novel ways to reduce tobacco use.

We sought to evaluate the changes in tobacco cessation benefits, patient access to cessation interventions, and cigarette smoking prevalence before and after introduction of the statewide Coordinated Care Organization (CCO) cigarette smoking incentive metric for Medicaid members.

Medicaid and public health collaborated to develop a novel population-level opportunity to reduce tobacco use. In 2016, an incentive metric for cigarette smoking was incorporated into Oregon's CCO Quality Incentive Program, which holds Oregon's CCOs accountable for providing comprehensive cessation benefits and for reducing tobacco use prevalence among members.

We evaluated the changes in tobacco cessation benefits, patient-provider discussions of smoking cessation, and cigarette smoking prevalence before and after the introduction of the statewide CCO cigarette smoking incentive metric.

All 15 CCOs now cover cessation counseling (telephone, individual, and group) and pharmacotherapy (all 7 FDA-approved medications). The number of CCOs requiring prior authorization for at least 1 FDA-approved pharmacotherapy decreased substantially. From 2016 through 2018, the percentage of Medicaid members who reported that their health care providers recommended cessation assistance increased above baseline. The incentive metric and aligned interventions were associated with a reduction in cigarette smoking prevalence among Medicaid members, as indicated by the electronic health record metric. Thirteen of 15 CCOs demonstrated a reduction in smoking prevalence with the statewide prevalence rate decreased from 29.3% to 26.6%.

Since incentive metric implementation, progress has been made to reduce tobacco use among CCO members. Cross-agency partnerships between Medicaid and public health contributed to these successes.