Community Health Worker Return On Investment Study Final Report

For several years, the state of Nevada has been interested in conducting a ROI study on CHWs. In 2015, the state collaborated with HPN to collect data from their planned pilot CHW program. The Center for Program Evaluation at the University of Nevada, Reno, which conducted the evaluation of the CHW pilot program, was contracted to conduct the ROI study using HPN’s data in 2015. The objective of this study was to assess the financial impacts of embedding CHWs within a managed care organization. Four research questions guided the study: (1) Do CHW services reduce overall medical costs for super-utilizer clients with three or more ER visits in six months? (2) Do CHW services reduce the number of acute admits, acute readmits, Emergency Room visits, and urgent care visits? (3) Do CHW services increase primary care provider visits? (4) What is the impact of CHW services on prescription costs?