vaccination benefits improved for us medicaid enrollees
TRANSCRIPT
PharmacoEconomics & Outcomes News 694, p7-8 - 18 Jan 2014
Vaccination benefits improved forUS Medicaid enrollees
US Medicaid programmes have maintained orexpanded vaccination coverage benefits for adults, andnearly half of them have explicitly prohibitedcopayments.
These are the main findings of a study that assessedbenefit coverage and cost-sharing for vaccinationservices for non-institutionalised adults amongMedicaid fee-for-service programmes throughout theUS.
A document review that examined programmepolicies showed that 36 of the 51 programmes (71%)covered all vaccines recommended by the AdvisoryCommittee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) in 2012,an 8% increase from 2003 (32/50; 63%). Seventeen ofthese 36 programmes explicitly prohibit copayments."The adoption of all ACIP recommended vaccines whileprohibiting copayments is an indication that adultvaccinations remain a priority for these programs,"comment the researchers. The study also showed thatthe influenza vaccine was the most frequently coveredvaccine (50/51; 98%) in 2012. Coverage of thehepatitis A vaccine increased more than for any othervaccine between 2003 and 2012 (18% increase, 74% to92%, from 38 to 47 programmes). According to a surveyof Medicaid administrators, most of the programmesranked ACIP recommendations as the most importantfactor influencing benefit coverage decisions.Nevertheless, "cost has the greatest impact onvaccination benefit coverage decisions," comment theresearchers.Stewart AM, et al. Vaccination benefits and cost-sharing policy for non-institutionalized adult Medicaid enrollees. Vaccine : 27 Nov 2013. Available from:URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.vaccine.2013.11.050 803097473
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PharmacoEconomics & Outcomes News 18 Jan 2014 No. 6941173-5503/14/0694-0001/$14.95 Adis © 2014 Springer International Publishing AG. All rights reserved