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Opioid Outreach, Treatment, and Prevention

Joanne McFall, Market President, Keystone First, talks about how our collaboration with CleanSlate helps us target and address the opioid crisis right here in our own backyard — and in other communities to come.

Our opioid outreach efforts

To help combat the opioid epidemic, we cover a variety of treatment services in an effort to destigmatize opioid addiction and provide patients with the physical and mental health support they need.

Medicaid managed care providers like us are at the forefront of the opioid epidemic. Our work with vulnerable populations puts us in a unique and critical position to address opioid addiction.

Consider the important role that Medicaid coverage plays:

  • According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, Medicaid covers nearly four in 10 nonelderly adults with opioid addiction.1
  • Lack of insurance is cited as a leading reason individuals with opioid addiction do not get the treatment they need.
  • Seventeen percent of Americans with opioid addiction are uninsured. 
  • According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the expansion of Medicaid has provided treatment to 99,000 people and helped reduce the “unmet need for treatment of substance use disorders by 18 percent."2

To effectively treat opioid addiction, patients need personalized, coordinated care with a strong support system. That’s what Medicaid managed care can offer.

How AmeriHealth Caritas is helping

Every day, we: 

  • Educate providers on alternative pain management techniques, reducing, or even eliminating, the need for risky opioid prescriptions.
  • Teach members about the dangers of opioids.
  • Create a strong provider network that delivers appropriate opioid addiction support and treatment.

But we can’t do it alone. That’s why we’ve partnered with other local organizations in Pennsylvania to deliver additional outreach programs.

These efforts include:

  1. “Medicaid’s Role in Addressing the Opioid Epidemic." February 27, 2018. Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. https://www.kff.org/infographic/medicaids-role-in-addressing-opioid-epidemic/.
  2. Hayes, Kyle. “Medicaid Expansion Essential to Address Opioid Epidemic.” October 5, 2017. Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. https://www.cbpp.org/blog/medicaid-expansion-essential-to-address-opioid-epidemic.