Primary Care Treatment of HCV in Medicaid Patients

Kulaga, Stephanie S

Item

Primary Care Treatment of HCV in Medicaid Patients

Kulaga, Stephanie S

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Abstract

New, safer HCV treatment regimens make it more feasible than ever for primary care providers to manage Hepatitis C patients in their own practices, rather than leaving management solely to specialists. With the current prevalence of HCV and increasing number of new cases linked to the opiate epidemic, it makes sense to expand the number of providers who manage this illness. However, the landscape of new treatments and changing Medicaid requirements present administrative barriers to primary care treatment of HCV. This project aimed to clarify what those barriers were and create a treatment algorithm to simplify decision-making around which patients should be referred to management solely by specialists, and around how to manage those patients appropriate for primary care.