Study finds gap in Medicaid’s efforts to help people stop smoking

Noted: There are a number of factors that could be at play. In some states, patients have to make co-payments toward the medication, or get prior authorization from the Medicaid program before getting the drug. Those are more or less “functional barriers” that keep Medicaid beneficiaries from getting the medicine that could help them quit, said Michael Fiore, a professor of medicine and director of the University of Wisconsin Medical School’s Center for Tobacco Research and Intervention. Fiore wasn’t involved in the study.