UnitedHealthcare Community Plan Donates Drug Disposal Kits to Local Community Groups to Help People Safely Dispose of Unused ...
May 21 2019 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
- 2,000 opioid disposal kits will be
distributed to Byrnes Health Education Center and the Mural Arts
Philadelphia’s Porch Light Program
- This donation is part of
UnitedHealthcare’s ongoing effort to provide a safe and effective
way to dispose of unused opioids
UnitedHealthcare Community Plan is confronting the opioid
epidemic by donating 2,000 opioid disposal kits to the Byrnes
Health Education Center and the Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Porch
Light Program.
The disposal kits offer people a convenient way to remove unused
opioids from their homes and prevent their misuse or diversion.
Over 60 percent of Americans with leftover opioid medications
keep them in their homes, and 70 percent of people misusing opioid
painkillers first got them from family or friends. UnitedHealthcare
Community Plan is donating the opioid disposal kits to promote the
safe disposal of opioids and help prevent further deaths from these
drugs. The kits were made possible thanks to a partnership with
Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals.
Each opioid disposal kit deactivates up to 45 tablets or six
opioid patches through this easy process:
- Open the sealable pouch, which contains
active carbon
- Add unused medications and warm water
as directed to the pouch
- The carbon binds to the active drug
ingredients and breaks the medication down
- Seal the pouch and safely discard in
your household garbage
UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of Pennsylvania serves more than
270,000 people enrolled in Medicaid and CHIP plan across the
Commonwealth. Promoting use of the kits is part of its continued
efforts to confront the opioid epidemic in Pennsylvania. Last year,
UnitedHealthcare Community Plan donated 10,000 opioid disposal kits
to the Byrnes Health Education Center and Family First Health.
“This donation to the Byrnes Health Education Center and the
Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Porch Light Program underscores our
ongoing engagement in the fight against the opioid epidemic,” said
Allison Davenport, CEO of UnitedHealthcare Community Plan of
Pennsylvania. “These kits provide Pennsylvanians with a safe way to
dispose of unused pain medication. We know that safe disposal is an
important step in preventing opioids from being misused, and
ultimately, in saving lives.”
The Byrnes Health Education Center is raising awareness of the
overdose epidemic among children through educational programs about
the impact drugs can have on individuals, families and
communities.
The Mural Arts Philadelphia’s Porch Light Program is a joint
collaboration with the City of Philadelphia’s Department of
Behavioral Health and Intellectual disAbility Services. This
collaboration focuses on issues that have tangible effects on local
communities, such as substance abuse, and works to create positive
changes within the community.
UnitedHealthcare, in partnership with community groups across
the country, has focused on five key interventions where research
indicates there is significant potential to fight opioid addiction
and misuse: promoting CDC guidelines on prescribing and dispensing;
working with pharmacies on appropriate prescribing levels; reducing
Neonatal Abstinence Syndrome in newborns; promoting Naloxone use;
and increasing referrals to medication-assisted treatment
centers.
More than 2 million people in the United States suffer from
substance-use disorders related to prescription opioid painkillers.
According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 2016, there
were 2,235 opioid-related overdose deaths in Pennsylvania – a rate
of 18.5 deaths per 100,000 people.
For more information about UnitedHealthcare’s efforts to address
the opioid epidemic, visit
https://newsroom.uhc.com/opioids.html.
About
UnitedHealthcareUnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping
people live healthier lives and making the health system work
better for everyone by simplifying the health care experience,
meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted
relationships with care providers. In the United States,
UnitedHealthcare offers the full spectrum of health benefit
programs for individuals, employers, and Medicare and Medicaid
beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1.3 million
physicians and care professionals, and 6,000 hospitals and other
care facilities nationwide. The company also provides health
benefits and delivers care to people through owned and operated
health care facilities in South America. UnitedHealthcare is one of
the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified
health care company. For more information, visit UnitedHealthcare
at www.uhc.com or follow @UHC on Twitter.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190521005125/en/
Christina WitzUnitedHealthcare(952)
931-4645Christina.Witz@uhc.com
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