By Daniel Mutter

With an investment from Wellpoint Texas in partnership with the Health Equity Through Clinician Education on IDD Initiative, Texas physicians and other clinicians will now have free access

 to an online, continuing medical education-approved course called the Curriculum in IDD Healthcare, authored by Dr. Craig Escudé, a board-certified developmental medicine physician and president of IntellectAbility.

Wellpoint Texas helps improve healthcare access and quality for nearly 750,000 Texans who participate in the state’s Medicaid programs. For nearly 30 years, Wellpoint has been working with

 doctors, specialists, and hospitals throughout Texas and partnering with many local community organizations, to help Texas families access the care they need. Wellpoint’s dedication to health equity is why the organization chose to invest $60,000 to make this training free and easily accessible.

According to a recent survey from Harvard Medical School[i], more than 80% of surveyed physicians perceived people with significant disabilities to have a poorer quality of life than non-disabled people and only 40% of physicians rated themselves as feeling “very confident” about their ability to provide the same level of healthcare to their patients with disabilities.

“Physicians and other clinicians want to embrace and support people with disabilities, but most have not received education in disability-competent healthcare,” said Dr. Escudé. “This results in a culture of fear and uncertainty that leaves people with IDD at the mercy of a healthcare system that doesn’t understand their needs.”

Wellpoint’s suite of health benefits is designed for consumers at any stage of life, offering access to simple, supportive health solutions to help foster whole-person health, including services from in-home wellness visits and transportation to the deployment of mobile medical clinics in low-income and rural communities.

“We value the health and well-being of all Texans and recognize the importance of collaborating and sharing best practices when it comes to providing the best possible healthcare for people with IDD,” said Greg Thompson, president of Wellpoint. “By making this online curriculum available free of charge to all Texas physicians and clinicians, we believe we can significantly impact health equity and improve the health and well-being of Texans living with IDD.”

The new partnership will build a greater understanding of the health risks and comorbidities of Texans with IDD while also ensuring better health outcomes and improvements in quality of life.

“This is a “win-win” for Texas physicians and other clinicians,” said Dr. Escudé. “At the same time you are increasing your disability healthcare competence, you can earn contact hours toward your license renewal.”

To learn more about IntellectAbility’s Curriculum in IDD Healthcare, please visit https://replacingrisk.com/curriculum-in-idd-healthcare-elearn/. If you are a clinician in Texas, you can enroll in the course here.

About Wellpoint
Wellpoint, part of the Elevance Health family of brands, focuses on improving physical health and the behavioral and social drivers that impact it through a comprehensive suite of Medicare, Medicaid, and Commercial products. The Wellpoint companies offer healthcare services for consumers at any stage of life seeking to make the right care decisions and help individuals and communities make real, positive progress with health plans that foster independence, confidence, and whole-person health. For more information, please visit www.wellpoint.com.

[i] Physicians’ Perceptions Of People With Disability And Their Health Care. 2021. Lisa I. Iezzoni, Sowmya R. Rao, Julie Ressalam, Dragana Bolcic-Jankovic, Nicole D. Agaronnik, Karen Donelan, Tara Lagu, and Eric G. Campbell. Health Affairs, VOL. 40, NO. 2. https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.01452

Author Daniel Mutter can be reached at Daniel (at) mutterworks.com

Published in the EIN Presswire