Headline
Health plans can use this toolkit to create or advance outpatient and home-based palliative care programs, beyond traditional acute care settings.
Context
Payers, including Medicaid, Medicare, and commercial insurance, play an important role in advancing palliative care, a medical specialty designed to relieve suffering and improve quality of life for people with serious illness and their families. Although palliative care is on the rise in acute care hospitals, there is significant opportunity to increase the availability of palliative care in outpatient and home-based settings.
About the Tool
The toolkit is designed to support leaders of health plans to promote the development and advancement of palliative care. The toolkit includes the following sections:
- Be Encouraged: Video testimony from leaders that have built successful palliative care programs within their health plan.
- Make the Case: Information, including summaries of positive clinical and cost-savings evidence, on how to get health plan leadership and organizational buy-in for palliative care programs.
- Develop a Plan: Action items for health plans depending on their level of readiness, including information on payment models, quality, integration with other medical and social services, and supporting uptake of the program.
Throughout, the toolkit features videos, interactive checklists, and links to external resources.
Takeaways
Health plans can play a role in bringing palliative care to more non-acute health care settings. Health plan leaders interested in championing palliative care programs in their organizations can review the actionable recommendations provided in this toolkit.