Texas Children’s is dedicated to providing wellness programs to help you achieve optimal health and well-being. Therefore, we are pleased to now offer employees who are tobacco users the opportunity to participate in our new Tobacco Treatment Program sponsored by the Employee Medical Clinic in partnership with MD Anderson Cancer Center.
How does the Tobacco Treatment Program work?
This program offers behavioral counseling and tobacco-cessation medications at no cost to Texas Children’s employees who meet the following criteria:
- Current tobacco user (e.g. cigarettes, smokeless tobacco) or
- Recently quit within the past 12 months, and
- Currently enrolled in one of the Texas Children’s medical insurance plans.
What can you expect from the program?
Program participants will attend a two-hour consultation at MD Anderson Cancer Center to discuss steps to quit smoking as well as nicotine replacement options. Your program enrollment costs and nicotine replacement prescriptions are covered by your Texas Children’s medical insurance plan. Participants will also receive up to eight, in-person or phone sessions with a tobacco-cessation counselor over a 12-week period as well as individual follow-up sessions every three months for one year.
Don’t wait, quit today! To learn more about this program, please contact Texas Children’s Health Coach Alexandra Alonso at 832-824-3068.
Do you know the benefits of quitting tobacco?
Decreased heart risks
Smoking is the leading cause of heart attacks and heart disease. Quitting can lower your blood pressure and heart rate almost immediately. Your risk of a heart attack declines within 24 hours.
Lower cholesterol
Quitting smoking will lower the levels of cholesterol and fats circulating in your blood, which will help to slow the buildup of new fatty deposits in your arteries.
Stop lung damage
It is important to quit smoking before you do permanent damage to your lungs. Within two weeks of quitting, you may notice it’s easier to walk up a flight of stairs and not be out of breath.
To learn more about the benefits of quitting tobacco, click here.