Key Points: Reviews trends and current state of coverage for tobacco cessation services

Presents cost/benefit & rationale for coverage and tips on how to present to policy making bodies

Demonstrates methods (care management objectives, incentive pay, academic detailing & results for increasing physician

participation in cessation) and describes smoke-free campus approach & assisted cessation for health care employees

Learning Objectives: Design a program to make health facility campuses (including outdoor areas & parking structures) totally smoke-free

Benefits: Coverage for cessation services is a growing concern for state tobacco programs that operate referral and quit lines; health professionals who seek better means of lowering tobacco use among their patients, and employers concerned about the rising costs of health care. Tobacco program managers, policy makers, advocates and health professionals need convincing examples to persuade policy bodies to cover cessation services and to hold physicians and health systems accountable for following evidence-based practices with their patients who use tobacco. Within health care delivery institutions, major barriers to success include lack of motivation and follow-through, higher incidence of smoking among nurses and lower-wage health workers and the pressures from employees, patients and their families who wish to smoke outside the health facilities but on the campus. This session is designed to provide real-life examples of how to convince policy makers to cover cessation and how to design, within a health care delivery system, a program that increases physician participation while decreasing environmental cues and exposure to smoke.