Payers and Public Health: A Novel Collaboration to Support Covid-19 Vaccination Uptake

The New York City (NYC) Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, as a local health department, partnered with health plans to pay for provider-initiated outreach for Covid-19 vaccine counseling for unvaccinated people through a program called the Vaccine Outreach and Counseling Program (VOCP). The collective effort and use of emergency contracting - with a budget of $35 million in funding from the government of NYC - allowed for an idea-to-execution period of 6 weeks. Seven insurance companies covering more than 90% of the NYC Medicaid market and a significant portion of the NYC Medicare Advantage market (insurance products that have a disproportionately large representation of people of color in NYC) administered the program as an in-kind contribution to the effort. Providers implementing the VOCP reported that they felt counseling efforts were valuable in increasing vaccination uptake, but also described operational challenges. Shortly after launching the VOCP, the federal government reached out to the health department to learn more about the program. Two months later, the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services authorized state Medicaid programs to cover such counseling. New York State's Medicaid program subsequently adopted a reimbursement policy with similar guidance for counseling while addressing some of the operational challenges of the VOCP model.