Cigna's Chronic Condition Coaching: Asthma
Background
People with chronic conditions who understand how to stay healthy are more likely to take an active role in managing their condition(s). Cigna's innovative Your Health FirstSM solution takes a holistic approach to helping individuals manage asthma and other chronic health conditions.
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Coaching
Helping to Reach Goals
Ongoing Work
Coaching to Influence Behavior Change
Your Health First addresses the health of the whole person, rather than focusing on a single diagnosis. Supported by evidence-based medical guidelines and influential behavioral techniques, Cigna’s health advocates help manage all aspects of participants’ personal health, including adherence to medications, understanding and managing risk factors, routine screenings, and more. Cigna’s health advocates also support participants in their doctor-patient relationship.
Your Health First empowers individuals to become active participants in their own health care, and the behavior change coaching model addresses social, economic, ethnic, and cultural differences/barriers to care.
The Your Health First approach goes well beyond imparting educational information. By helping individuals understand their personal motivators and “why” and “how” they make health choices, health advocates help them learn to manage their chronic conditions more effectively and achieve better health.
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Helping People with Asthma Reach Their Health Goals
Health advocates work with adults, teens, and children to support them in understanding asthma, including its symptoms, possible treatments, and when to call their doctor. Health advocates emphasize building knowledge on what increases risk, and prevention measures that participants can take to reduce their symptoms.
Asthma-related goals can include:
- Medication – increase prescription adherence
- Prevention – relapse prevention/sick day plan
- Prevention – increase awareness of asthma environmental triggers
- Prevention – obtain a flu shot
Targeted outcomes include:
- Compliance with long-term control medications (MPR1. >80%)
- Reduction in emergency room visits and inpatient admissions
Each individual’s health status and progress are monitored. Even when participants have completed their scheduled coaching calls, their relationships with their health advocates continue. They are encouraged to contact their health advocate at any time with any questions or concerns, and not necessarily just those related to their chronic condition(s).
Cigna's Ongoing Work to Address Health Disparities
Cigna is committed to reducing disparities and improving health equity for all its customers. The cultural expertise of Cigna employees is leveraged to design communications that meet the needs of individuals in terms of language, cultural appropriateness, reading level, and preferred communication channel. Cigna also builds relationships with health care professionals, employers, and community organizations to raise awareness and collaborate on efforts to reduce disparities. Cigna has started to review the care received by its’ customers with asthma, looking for racial or ethnic disparities. Actions will be based on the final finding of this review.
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1. MPR = Medication possession ratio