Molina Healthcare Selected to Participate in Prediabetes Program Implementation
Molina Healthcare, Inc.Sunny Yu562-901-1039
Molina Healthcare, Inc. (NYSE:MOH) in partnership with America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) has been selected to participate in a cooperative agreement with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to implement the National Diabetes Prevention Program (NDPP) around the country. As part of this project, Molina Healthcare and three other health plans will implement NDPP, which aims to prevent type 2 diabetes in individuals who have prediabetes, a condition of elevated blood sugar that often leads to type 2 diabetes within a few years. By developing innovative private-public partnerships with local and regional institutions, Molina Healthcare will be able to leverage existing institutions’ competencies and resources to provide the NDPP program to its members in New Mexico and Florida.
“Molina has a long-standing commitment to preventing type 2 diabetes and its related risk factors through innovative and collaborative efforts with community partners,” saysMartha Bernadett, MD, MBA, executive vice president for research and innovation at Molina Healthcare. “This is one of those efforts. The NDPP helps participants make healthy lifestyle changes. Not only will our members understand how to choose healthier foods and increase physical activity, but they will also be learning strategies for maintaining those changes.”
Working together over the next four years, Molina Healthcare will partner New Mexico State University College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences Cooperative Extension Services and with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) Cooperative Extension Services as well as each state’s Diabetes Prevention and Control Program (DPCP) to implement the program in both states. Molina Healthcare and the Extension offices will recruit eligible participants for sites/programs in New Mexico and Florida through provider education and outreach.
CDC estimates that 79 million Americans—35 percent of U.S. adults aged 20 and older—have prediabetes. People with prediabetes also have a higher risk for heart disease and stroke. The CDC is working with community-based organizations, insurers, employers and health care organizations to make the NDPP available across the country. NDPP is an evidence-based program that reduces the likelihood of developing type 2 diabetes by nearly 60 percent.
Classes offered through the prevention program combine the power of group support with evidence-based curriculum to help people with prediabetes make lasting changes to improve and protect their health.
The program includes lifestyle change classes led by trained coaches that meet for 16 core sessions as participants focus on losing five to seven percent of their body weight and increasing physical activity to 150 minutes each week. After the initial 16 sessions, classes meet monthly for six months. The CDC facilitates training so that there is a workforce of lifestyle coaches to lead classes and sets standards so to help assure programs are successful.
Molina Healthcare, Inc., a FORTUNE 500 company, provides quality and cost-effective Medicaid-related solutions to meet the health care needs of low-income families and individuals and to assist state agencies in their administration of the Medicaid program. Our licensed health plans in California, Florida, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Texas, Utah, Washington and Wisconsin currently serve approximately 1.8 million members, and our subsidiary, Molina Medicaid Solutions, provides business processing and information technology administrative services to Medicaid agencies in Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, New Jersey, and West Virginia, and drug rebate administration services in Florida. More information about Molina Healthcare is available at .