Is your organization looking to expand its tobacco cessation services but funding challenges are getting in the way? Financing these services might be easier than you think! Building off existing organizational resources, you may utilize a familiar gardening technique to help you with this — plant a SEED, water it regularly, and watch it grow!
- Strengthen your current procedures.
The Behavioral Health & Wellness Program (BHWP) at the University of Colorado have created several resources to help you strengthen your current procedures including fact sheets, toolkits, and publications. BHWP’s resource A Patient-Centered Tobacco Cessation Workflow for Healthcare Facilities has more information about staffing roles and responsibilities, and examples of workflow charts with EHR coding and billing tips to better help you integrate tobacco cessation into your clinic.
- Educate your workforce.
Increasing staff knowledge can also increase professional satisfaction and engagement, in turn creating an agency culture that embraces tobacco cessation, and is excited to seek additional funding, and build financial support for needed services. BHbusiness Plus offers multiple courses for your staff on new business development and additional tools to support business generation.
- Engage your billing/coding staff.
Third party billing presents opportunities to increase reimbursement and revenue for tobacco cessation interventions. Check out this webinar Cracking the (CPT) Code for Tobacco Cessation & Cancer Prevention. Learn about CPT codes such as the tobacco cessation counseling codes (99406 and 99407) and the brand-new behavioral health integration code (G0507). Work with your State’s Medicaid agency and insurance companies to find out how your staff can better use these codes.
- Develop your engagement and contracting negotiation approaches.
Managed care companies and state Medicaid agencies are looking for opportunities to lower chronic and long-term care costs. Engaging with them around this can have big results! As your agency prepares to negotiate your next managed care contract, use the resources from the National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco and Cancer Control to make a case for tobacco cessation coverage in your contract. You can also find tips on Third Party Contract Negotiations from SAMHSA’s BHbusiness, and if your state does not have the CPT codes turned on, now is the time to start a conversation with other providers to advocate for change!
For further resources, and additional support to improve your organization’s tobacco cessation services, join the National Behavioral Health Network for Tobacco and Cancer Control.