CBT for Insomnia - Insurers

Gregg D. Jacobs, Ph.D., an insomnia specialist at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, is the sleep expert in, and co-developer of, an online CBT (cognitive behavioral therapy) insomnia program that is being used by Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts (BCBSMA) to reduce sleeping pill costs in its 3 million members. An earlier version of this program is also being used by Kaiser Permanente and Aetna. These online CBT insomnia programs are based on the CBT insomnia program that Dr. Jacobs developed and tested at Harvard Medical School through his NIH-funded research. ¹ Several new lower-cost versions of this program that will significantly reduce the use of sleeping pills are now available to insurers/HMOs.

Due to the high prevalence of sleeping pill use, a typical insurer/HMOs spends millions of dollars annually on hypnotic-related costs (which do not include non-hypnotics such as Trazodone, Neurontin, Ativan, Klonopin, Xanax, etc. that are prescribed more frequently than hypnotics for insomnia). The vast majority of these sleeping pill costs are unnecessary and can be reduced or eliminated with CBT. CBT is more effective than hypnotics are and reduces or eliminates hypnotics in 60-90% of patients. ^2,3

Because therapist-delivered CBT is not widely available and is costly in the short-term, a major paper in the journal Sleep recently suggested that self-help and online CBT should be the first-line treatment for insomnia. ⁴ Additionally, recent studies demonstrate that CBT can be delivered inexpensively and effectively in self-help (DVD, CD) and online formats. ^5,6 These data are consistent with the BCBSMA online version of Dr. Jacobs’s program. It reduced sleeping pill use in BCBSMA members by 33% in just three weeks, reduced insomnia nights by 85%, and increased total sleep time by almost an hour.

CD/MP3 and PDF versions of Dr. Jacobs’s CBT program are now available to insurers at introductory annual license rates that are less than what most insurers spend in a week for hypnotic-related expenses. For more information on using these programs to dramatically reduce hypnotic-related costs while improving the sleep of your members, please contact Dr. Jacobs at info@cbtforinsomnia.com.

1. Jacobs G.D., et al., Arch Intern Med, 2004; 2.Morin, C. et al., Am. J. of Psychiatry, 2004; 3.Jacobs, GD., et al., Am. J. of Med. , 1996; 4. Espie, C. , Sleep, 2009.; 5. Van Straetn, A., and Cuijpers, P., Sleep Med Rev, 2009.; 6.Ritterband, L.M., et al. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2009.