|
At a time when everyone is looking for ways to reduce health carecosts in America, using commercial disease management programs toreduce the fee-for-service Medicare costs associated with chronic conditions among senior citizensseems like a practical approach. Rather than managing chronic conditions with traditional care thatincludes physicians and clinical visits, commercialdisease-management models rely on teams of health coaches, usuallyin remote call centers, to enhance beneficiaries' knowledge andability to care for themselves as well as coordinate servicesacross providers. Unfortunately, commercial disease management models did not reducehospital admissions or emergency room visits or result in costsavings in a study of nearly 250,000 Medicare patients conducted byresearchers at RTI International for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. The study is published in the Nov. 3 issue of the New EnglandJournal of Medicine. "While this would appear to be an innovative way to reduce Medicareexpenditures, managing the care of older patients through telephonecontact or an occasional visit does not achieve the cost savingsCongress had hoped for when it mandated the Medicare Health SupportPilot Program," said Nancy McCall, ScD, a senior health economistat RTI International and the study's lead author. "Our resultssuggest that for such programs to be effective, they would need tobe supplemented by intensive, costly, personal clinical attention." The study, which included almost 250,000 patients randomly assignedto a commercial program for disease management or usual care, foundthat commercial disease-management companies had no success inreducing hospital admissions or emergency room visits amongfee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries and had only limited successin improving the processes of care. The results also showed that commercial disease-management programsachieved only modest improvements in quality-of-care measures andhad no demonstrable reduction in the use of acute care or the costsof care. The researchers suggest that the commercially baseddisease-management model may not work for Medicare, in part becausethe care of older, chronically ill patients is difficult to manage.They are more likely than younger people to have new acuteconditions such as stroke , pneumonia or a hip fracture. The authors also found that the health coaches in thedisease-management program were not integrated into the patient'sprimary health care team, which hindered their ability to interactdirectly with the patient's primary care providers and facilitatechanges in medical care plans made by the primary care provider. As part of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, Congressrequired the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to test thecommercial disease management model in the fee-for-service program. Additional References Citations. The e-commerce company in China offers quality products such as China Cell Phone Silicone Cases , Silicone Wristband Watch Manufacturer, and more. For more , please visit Silicone Kitchenware today!
Related Articles -
China Cell Phone Silicone Cases, Silicone Wristband Watch Manufacturer,
|
