On behalf of its members, BHCG identifies strategic initiatives designed to enhance the value of members’ benefit offerings.  Presently, BHCG supports several initiatives, including:

[accordion clicktoclose=true scroll=true tag=h3]

[accordion-item title="Advance Care Planning"]

Advance care planning, commonly referred to as advance directives, is an important step consumers can take to be responsible for their own health and health care. BHCG is acutely aware of the critical need for advance care planning and is actively involved in promoting it by supporting:

  • The Wisconsin Medical Society’s advance care planning project — Honoring Choices —  which focuses on advocacy, public awareness and community engagement, ensuring patients make well-informed decisions about wishes for the end of life.  BHCG commends the many local health care organizations which have incorporated advance care planning processes into their delivery system.
  • Member employers'  efforts to communicate the need for advance care planning to their employees.

All too often patients do not receive the care they want as they approach their last days. Discussing end-of-life care is difficult for everyone involved: health care providers, patients and family members. It is, however, imperative that these discussions happen.

[/accordion-item]

[accordion-item title="Behavioral Screening and Intervention"]

Recognizing  behavioral issues are responsible for approximately $18 billion in health care spending annually in Wisconsin, BHCG helped facilitate the awarding of a grant to the Partnership for Healthcare Payment Reform (PHPR) to promote behavioral screening and intervention (BSI) services. The grant, awarded by the Greater Milwaukee Business Foundation on Health (GMBFH), focused on making BSI a standard of care in the health care delivery system.  The 18-month $158,000 grant funded a project manager responsible for:

  • Educating purchasers, payers and providers on the efficacy, cost-effectiveness and feasibility of delivering BSI
  • Aiding in the relationship building between key representatives of provider and payer organizations around the delivery of BSI
  • Facilitating conversation among providers and payers to determine barriers to BSI delivery and gathering suggestions from key stakeholders for purchasers to consider in overcoming such barriers.

Through BSI, patients are systematically screened for excessive drinking, drug use, depression, tobacco, diet, exercise, and obesity. Behavioral screening and intervention is a priority for BHCG member employers.  We:

  • Continue to educate our member employers about this issue
  • Work with UnitedHealthcare to ensure proper payment to providers for screening
  • Work with the provider community to promote behavioral screening and intervention as a standard of care.

[/accordion-item]

 

[/accordion]