Conservative Therapies for Low Back Pain - Funding opportunity

RFP Flyer

OptumLabs Research Applications Template (word doc)

The American Physical Therapy Association (APTA) and UnitedHealthcare (UHC), in collaboration with OptumLabs, are excited to offer this funding opportunity to address conservative therapies for low back pain. 

Your organization is invited to submit a proposal to address conservative therapies for low back pain.

The primary goal is to identify risk factors associated with the development of long-term opioid use and misuse. Factors should include the provider type seen initially and during early management for low back pain (LBP), the role of physical therapy as the initial provider type or provided during early management for LBP, and patient clinical characteristics and demographics.

The project will define the potential impact of early physical therapy and other non-opioid related strategies to address LBP, with specific attention to costs, utilization, and quality outcomes.   Another goal is to identify opportunities to accelerate translation of study outcomes via practical strategies and policies that payers, providers, patients and other stakeholder channels should consider.

This funding opportunity is being offered to OptumLabs Partners, with expertise in health services research, observational studies using claims data and a particular focus on low back pain management.  This project will leverage the existing OptumLabs Data Warehouse (OLDW) which includes administrative claims, EHR-derived clinical data and socio-demographic data.

The winning proposal will be supported by a grant of up to $200,000, to cover direct and indirect costs,  plus the fees for an OLDW project sandbox. The winning team will also have the opportunity to present at a future OptumLabs event.

Please send us your questions by Monday, March 20^th.  We will hold a Q&A session Tuesday, March 21^st at 3 PM Eastern to answer your questions and provide additional clarification as needed.  An outlook invitation will be sent for this session. 

To review the funding opportunity in greater depth and learn about proposal and submission requirements, please see our attached Request for Proposal and PRA template.  Proposals are due by Thursday, April 13, 2017 at 11:59pm ET.

Please see key dates and times below.

Key dates

For additional questions, please contact [email protected].

Thank you for considering this opportunity!

APTA
UnitedHealthcare
OptumLabs

About
The American Physical Therapy Association is an individual membership professional organization representing more than 93,000 member physical therapists, physical therapist assistants, and students of physical therapy. APTA seeks to improve the health and quality of life of individuals in society by advancing physical therapist practice, education and research, and by increasing the awareness and understanding of physical therapy's role in the nation's health care system.

UnitedHealthcare is dedicated to helping people nationwide live healthier lives by simplifying the health care experience, meeting consumer health and wellness needs, and sustaining trusted relationships with care providers. The company offers the full spectrum of health benefit programs for individuals, employers, military service members, retirees and their families, and Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries, and contracts directly with more than 1 million physicians and care professionals, and 6,000 hospitals and other care facilities nationwide. Globally, UnitedHealthcare is one of the businesses of UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH), a diversified Fortune 50 health and well-being company.

OptumLabs™ is the health care industry’s first open collaborative research and innovation center, whose mission is to work with thought-leading partners to enable innovation and ground-breaking research designed to improve patient care and patient value.