Thinking About Quitting ?
- Quitting is different for everyone. You have your own reasons for wanting to quit - and you'll have your own way of quitting for good.
- It often takes several tries before a smoker can finally quit. But don't be discouraged - there are proven ways to improve your chance of success.
- Smokers are two to three times more likely to succeed in quitting if they use counseling support and FDA-approved medications together.
- Many insurance plans, including MassHealth, help with the cost of quitting smoking.
For more information about quitting smoking and resources to help you quit, visit www.makesmokinghistory.org/quitting-smoking
 To promote cessation and help smokers quit, MTCP offers cessation information and telephone-based (quitline) services through the Massachusetts Smokers' Helpline, and works in partnership with health plans, healthcare providers and employers to promote adoption of effective cessation policies and treatment practices.
Evidence shows that if health care providers intervene routinely with smokers and offer treatment, quit rates increase significantly. This is more likely to occur when health care facilities have systems in place to identify and treat smokers, and providers regularly receive feedback on patients’ progress in quitting.
MTCP promotes cessation and helps smokers to quit through the following initiatives:
- helping smokers quit through the Quit Now helpline 1-800-Quit-Now (1-800-784-8669)
- improving access to cessation services by working with healthcare providers, health insurers, and public and private employers in Massachusetts through the Quitworks program
- conducting Ready, Set, Quit, a pilot program designed to help smokers quit by providing eligible smokers with a free two-week supply of nicotine patches and telephone counseling services
- conducting cessation program evaluation and research
The Massachusetts Smokers' Helpline
The Resource Center houses a telephone-based Smokers’ Helpline, an interactive web site for smokes, educational materials, and the Quitworks program. They also collaborate with MTCP on special promotional programs, such as Ready, Set, Quit, which distribute free nicotine replacement patches to smokers who want to quit.
The Smokers’ Helpline at 1-800-Quit-Now (1-800-784-8669), provides confidential telephone information, referral and counseling at no charge to smokers who want to quit
Counselors are available to speak English, Spanish and Portuguese. Translators are available for other languages.
www.TrytoStop.org is an interactive website for smokers that offers expert advice, an interactive bulletin board, self-directed quitting tools, resources and information in nine languages.
QuitWorks
QuitWorks (www.quitworks.org) is an interactive website that provides cessation services to smokers who are referred by their health care providers. QuitWorks was developed by MTCP in 2002 in collaboration with all major health care insurers in Massachusetts.
Heath care providers enroll patients who smoke in QuitWorks by faxing a completed referral form to the Resource Center. Trained telephone counselors then contact patients proactively to provide counseling and send providers fax-back reports on each patient’s progress.
Health plans contribute substantially to the promotion of QuitWorks, including printing and distribution of materials.
More than one hundred hospitals, community health centers and DPH programs formally adopted the QuitWorks program and received customized services.
Ready, Set, Quit
Ready, Set, Quit is a pilot program designed to increase public awareness of effective cessation methods and increase use of the state’s quitline.
Ready, Set, Quit offers a free two-week supply of nicotine patches and telephone support to eligible smokers who want to quit. Pilot programs have been conducted in Fall River/New Bedford, Worcester, and Lawrence.
Cessation Program
Improving Access to Cessation Services by working with healthcare providers, health insurers, and public and private employers in Massachusetts.
In FY2005, MTCP formed a Consortium for a Healthy Workforce with public and private employers in Massachusetts, and held a full-day conference on worksite cessation policies for 46 representatives from Massachusetts public and private employers
Technical Assistance and Training
UMass Medical School (UMMS), under contract with MTCP, assists health care organizations to implement policies and clinical practices to help smokers to quit. They also provide a range of provider education and training programs and maintain a certification program for tobacco treatment specialists.
This information is provided by the Massachusetts Tobacco Control Program within the Department of Public Health.
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