Faster hepatitis C treatment with interdisciplinary primary care

Background: Hepatitis C virus treatment is increasingly being offered in primary care because medications now require less frequent monitoring and have fewer adverse effects. However, many primary care clinicians still defer treatment to specialists due to administrative burdens, including laboratory workup, insurance prior authorizations, and pharmacy coordination, which can delay care.

The innovation: At an urban family medicine residency clinic in Columbus, Ohio, many eligible patients were not successfully receiving and completing hepatitis C virus treatment. In July 2022, the clinic formed an interdisciplinary team consisting of a physician champion, a pharmacist, and an office staff member to streamline medication access, including prior authorization support. Physicians prescribed treatment, and the pharmacist coordinated medication access and conducted routine follow-up appointments to support adherence. The clinic retrospectively compared outcomes from July 2022 to June 2024 with July 2020 to June 2022 as a quality improvement evaluation.

Implications: Implementation of an interdisciplinary team resulted in more patients receiving hepatitis C virus treatment, while substantially reducing the average time to start treatment from over 6 months to under 2 months. Sharing administrative and follow-up tasks across a team was associated with improved access to treatment.