Healthy Steps for Young ChildrenSM

E-UPDATE

March 2004 Issue

Stories


Healthy Steps National Evaluation Receives Nationwide, Favorable News Coverage

Proving that good news travels fast, when the Journal of the American Medical Association published results of the Healthy Steps National Evaluation on December 17, 2003, the press took notice. Substantial newspaper coverage included stories in USA Today, The Kansas City Star, The Baltimore Sun, and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Television made great use of the 90-second Healthy Steps video news release (VNR), produced by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The VNR aired on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, and cable affiliate stations in top media markets across the U.S. including Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Detroit, Boston, and Atlanta. Some 4.1 million viewers in 71 markets saw the reports on Healthy Steps.

For a copy of the VNR, please contact Alisa Meerovich at ameerovich@icfi.com.

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Potential Reimbursement for Developmental Screening

This may be the “beginning of the beginning” for reimbursement for developmental screening – an activity central to Healthy Steps. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has published a final rule that allows payers in the health care system to reimburse for Current Procedural Terminology (CPT) codes 96110 and 96111. These codes cover developmental screening as performed by nurses and physicians, respectively.

What does this mean for Healthy Steps practices today? The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), which is largely responsible for these code enhancements, tells us that they hope these changes will trickle down to Medicaid and commercial payers so that these payers will follow the Medicare physician fee schedule (also called Resource-Based Relative Value Scale or RBRVS) and reimburse fairly for these services. While there is no legal mandate that requires non-Medicare payers to utilize the new codes 96110 and 96111, there is now an opportunity for payers that follow RBRVS to provide fair reimbursement for developmental screening.

What you can do: Healthy Steps practices are urged to find out what position their state Medicaid programs, as well as their managed care and health insurance companies, are taking on the adoption of the new relative values for these codes.

For additional information, contact Linda Walsh at the AAP (1-800-433-9016, ext. 7931; lwalsh@aap.org) or Healthy Steps Director Michael C. Barth (mbarth@icfi.com). If you learn anything about payer response to these codes, please advise us.

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Now Available! Continuing Medical Education Credit for Healthy Steps Multimedia Kit Users

Thanks to the national evaluation, it’s no secret that physicians in practice can greatly benefit from Healthy Steps. In addition to higher levels of family satisfaction and lower levels of patient turnover, Healthy Steps now provides an added incentive to using its materials – continuing medical education credit (CME). Physicians can now earn CMEs for using the Healthy Steps Interactive Multimedia Training and Resource Kit (which includes a user’s manual, nine videocassette tapes, and a CD-ROM). The CMEs are available through Boston University School of Medicine. Users can earn two credits for each of the nine videotapes. The videos cover the main concepts of Healthy Steps and show how the program is used in medical practices. Topics include teachable moments, home visits, and family factors that affect children, such as smoking or depression.

For more information on the Healthy Steps Multimedia Training Kit, please go to www.healthysteps.org and click on “Multimedia Training Kit” in the left panel.

Boston University School of Medicine is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education to provide continuing medical education for physicians. Boston University School of Medicine designates this education activity for a maximum of 18 category one credits (two credits per video cassette) toward AMA Physician’s Recognition Award. Each physician should claim only those credits he/she actually spent in the activity.

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Stillwater, Oklahoma Approaches a Successful First Year with Healthy Steps

As the first Healthy Steps site in Oklahoma approaches its first anniversary, clinicians and families take a look back at the program's success. The Warren Clinic, a private pediatric health provider, and the Payne County Health Department began the site as a pilot project in April 2003. Family and physician reaction to the first 10 months of the Healthy Steps site in Stillwater has been overwhelmingly positive.

All six doctors at the Warren Clinic are involved in the program. A hospital-based home health nurse conducts home visits, usually within a child's first two weeks of life, upon the request of the family. The Healthy Steps Specialists are four Payne County Health Department staff with training in psychology, child development, or speech development, who spend three days a week at the Warren Clinic. The 11 staff meet bi-monthly to coordinate patient care. Doctor and patient satisfaction at the site has been steadily rising over the past year. And based on the success in Stillwater, Healthy Steps may be extended to the Warren Clinic in Tulsa.

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Poster Session in Colorado Introduces Healthy Steps to a New Audience
Many families and medical professionals frequently comment that Healthy Steps bridges the gap between what mothers and fathers want to know and where to get the information. But in Colorado, Healthy Steps is bridging a different gap. Becky Utt, RN, of the Parenting Partnership of the Mesa County Health Department presented a poster titled "The Implementation of Healthy Steps Curriculum in the Population Not Eligible for the Nurse-Family Partnership" at the September 2003 Public Health Conference in Steamboat, Colorado. The topic garners great interest because it introduces a way to help young families who can benefit from Healthy Steps but cannot participate in Colorado’s Nurse-Family Partnership (NFP). NFP, also known as the “David Olds Model,” requires the participants to be first-time mothers.

The session was well received with about 10 agencies requesting further information. In particular, Boulder's Health Care Program for Children with Special Needs and the Hinsdale County Health Department asked the Parenting Partnership for assistance in implementing Healthy Steps.

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Healthy Steps Funders Meet

Florida played host to 20 Healthy Steps funders who met in conjunction with the Grantmaker's in Health Annual conference in February 2004. The funders reviewed the December release of the Healthy Steps evaluation including TV and print media attention and discussed the status of Healthy Steps sites, including extending Healthy Steps into an additional residency training facility at the University of Kansas in Wichita, a new site in Kansas City, MO, and new locations in Scottsdale, AZ, and Pittsburgh, PA.

A key part of the Florida meeting addressed funder activities, including the Chicago funding consortium’s work to use the Healthy Steps approach as the core of several efforts relating to residency training, new practice operations, and joint work with the Illinois state Medicaid program.

Importantly, the 20 funders focused on issues concerning Healthy Steps developing close working relationships with the major medical organizations and the medical community at large. As the American Academy Pediatrics (AAP) revises Bright Futures, a national health promotion initiative, the AAP is paying close attention to the Healthy Steps Multimedia Training Kit and training manual, "Strategies for Change."

In the final segment of the Funders’ meeting, Ed Schor of The Commonwealth Fund reported on the Fund’s increasing emphasis on Child Development in health care. Key projects include: preparation of a chartbook profiling children’s developmental problems and health care needs; development of a website to provide access for primary care providers to developmental screening tools and educational materials; and training of pediatric practice office staff to improve developmental and preventive services.

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