Partnership for Prevention

In early February, Partnership for Prevention (Partnership) convened a diverse group of 18 experts with medical, research and assessment backgrounds to provide their critical input into the development of a Health Risk Assessment (HRA) that will be included in the annual wellness visit (AWV) authorized for the more than 91 million Medicare beneficiaries under The Affordable Care Act (The ACA). Partnership organized and helped lead the two-day meeting in response to a Federal Register Notice that announced a Public Forum for comments in the development of guidance for the HRA.

The annual wellness visit fosters a culture of prevention within Medicare by developing an annual appointment which generates a personalized prevention plan that identifies interventions to address key risk factors for each beneficiary. The AWV also provides Medicare beneficiaries with an appropriate set of instructions, referrals and medical guidance. The HRA is key to the wellness visit and will allow healthcare practitioners to gather and analyze patient information prior to the office visit, such as family and medical history and behavioral risks. The HRA is intended to serve as a prelude to and a basis for an office visit to avoid the administration of tests and procedures that may not be warranted and to help clinicians identify the highest priority concerns to address during the visit. As a result of using an HRA, healthcare professionals can increase the time he or she devotes to a personalized and comprehensive conversation about the patient’s risk profile and the steps that he or she should take to modify that risk.

Prior to the meeting, Partnership for Prevention, along with Ron Goetzel, PhD, Vice President, Consulting and Applied Research, Thomson Reuters, conducted 13 expert interviews about the development, implementation, and evaluation of HRA. The experts provided guidance based on their own experiences with HRA content, mode of administration, primary care office capacity, patient perspectives, data, certification, and evaluation and quality assurance. The experts included a wide range of perspectives, and represented providers, academic institutions, certifying entities, and product development groups.

The meeting, which consisted of seven expert panel discussions, was a productive one and yielded the following outcomes:

• Based on the expert interviews and panel discussions as well as background research and public comments, Dr. Goetzel and Partnership will prepare a report for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) that will provide guidance to Medicare on the development of the HRA.
• Secondly, Partnership is managing the development of an article on HRA guidance to be published in an upcoming issue of The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), which is prepared by the CDC. Often called “the voice of CDC,” the MMWR series is the agency’s primary vehicle for scientific publication of timely, reliable, authoritative, accurate, objective, and useful public health information and recommendations. MMWR readership predominately consists of physicians, nurses, public health practitioners, epidemiologists and other scientists, researchers, educators, and laboratorians.

Partnership will continue to be a resource for both CDC and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) with regards to HRA and prevention. Partnership will also continue to promote and advocate for prevention with Medicare, including the new AWV.

For additional information about Partnership’s work on the HRA, please contact Jason M.M. Spangler, MD, MPH, FACPM, Chief Medical Officer, Partnership for Prevention, jspangler@prevent.org.

Below is the meeting agenda with links to the panel presentations.

 

HRA Guidance Public Forum Agenda

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Roybal Campus, Global Communication
Center, Bldg 19, Auditorium B-3

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

 

8:00am	Facility opens; Check-in
9:00–9:15am	Welcome and Setting the Stage, Day 1: Chesley Richards, MD, MPH, Director, Office of Prevention through Healthcare, Office of the Associate Director for Policy, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
9:15-9:30am	Director Welcome: Health Risk Assessment: a standardized framework: Thomas R. Frieden MD, MPH, Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
9:30–11:00am	Overview of the new annual Medicare Wellness Visit: Joe Chin, MD, Division of Medical & Surgical Services, Coverage and Analysis Group, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Review of the HRA impact on health outcomes: Mark Oremus, PhD, Co-Associate Director, McMaster Evidence-based Practice Centre   Overview of the Expert Work Group and Introduction to Panels: Ron Goetzel, PhD, Vice President, Consulting and Applied Research, Thomson Reuters
11:00–12:30pm	Panel 1—Content and Design Don Hall, DrPH, CHES, Founder and Chief Development Architect, Wellsource, Inc. The Prevention Plan: Ron Loeppke, MD, MPH, Vice-Chairman, U.S. Preventive Medicine Employer/Purchaser Perspective: Dennis White MS, MBA, Senior Vice President of Value-Based Purchasing, National Business Coalition on Health
12:30–1:00pm	Public Comment
1:00–2:00pm	Lunch Break
2:00–3:00pm	Panel 2—Mode of Administration David Anderson, PhD, LP, Senior Vice President and Chief Health Officer, StayWell Health Management Victor J. Strecher, PhD, Professor, Health Behavior & Health Education, Director, Health Media Research Laboratory, Director, Cancer Prevention and Control, University of Michigan School of Public Health, and Chairman & Founder of HealthMedia, Inc.
3:00–4:30pm	Panel 3—Primary Care Office Capacity Seth Foldy, MD, MPH, Director, Public Health Informatics and Technology Program Office, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Primary Care Office Capacity: John H. Wasson, MD, Professor of Community and Family Medicine and Herman O. West Professor of Geriatrics, Department of Community and Family Medicine, Dartmouth Medical School Primary Care Office Capacity for HRAs: Alex Krist, MD, MPH, Fairfax Family Medicine Residency Faculty, Department of Family Medicine, Virginia Commonwealth University
4:30–5:00pm	Public Comment