Patrick Administration Announces Positive Results from MassHealth Smoking Cessation Benefit

Unprecedented drop seen in heart attacks, asthma, and birth complications

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BOSTON — The Patrick Administration announced today that the new MassHealth benefit to help smokers quit is already paying off. Within just one year, users of the smoking cessation benefit had dramatic reductions in hospitalizations for heart attacks, declines in emergency and clinic visits for asthma, and a significant decrease in acute birth complications.

In the first two and a half years of the benefit, over 75,000 MassHealth members have tried to quit smoking. This represents 40 percent of smokers on MassHealth, a level unprecedented in the nation.

"These findings have national significance for upcoming major decisions in health care reform," said Governor Deval Patrick. "By providing MassHealth members with barrier-free access to cessation services, we are beginning see a positive health impact for tobacco-related illnesses in just one year."

Researchers from the Massachusetts Tobacco Cessation and Prevention Program (MTCP) found that up to 38 percent fewer MassHealth cessation benefit users were hospitalized for heart attacks in the first year after using the benefit and 17 percent fewer benefit users visited the emergency room for asthma symptoms in the first year after using the benefit. Researchers also found that there were 17 percent fewer claims for adverse maternal birth complications since the benefit was implemented.

"It is clear from these latest findings that the Commonwealth’s efforts to help people quit smoking are a sound investment," said Executive Office of Health and Human Services Secretary JudyAnn Bigby. "We are analyzing all of the health impacts of the cessation benefit and their associated cost savings."

MTCP and MassHealth worked together to design a barrier-free benefit that includes all FDA-approved medications to quit smoking and behavioral counseling. Beginning in July 2006, MassHealth began providing coverage of smoking cessation as part of the state’s health care reform initiative. The benefit was introduced into an environment that encourages quitting smoking: Massachusetts has smoke-free workplaces, high cigarette taxes, and a non-smoking social norm, all of which contribute to smokers wanting to quit.

"The significance of this research demonstrates how important it is to provide comprehensive tobacco cessation services to smokers and to make sure they know about them," said Department of Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach. "We know that smokers who get support and use stop-smoking medicines like the patch are more than twice as likely to be able to quit for good as those who try to quit on their own."

Smoking remains the number one preventable cause of illness and death in the Commonwealth and in the United States. More than 8,000 Massachusetts residents die annually from the effects of smoking, and tobacco use is associated with $4.3 billion in excess health care costs in Massachusetts each year.

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