disease management programs news from FierceHealthcare

Here's a radical thought: Pharma's future may expand well beyond medications. A new report from PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that to prepare for the pharma world of 2020, pharmaceutical companies... Read more...

A new study done by a government-contracted research firm has concluded that Medicare's recent disease management pilot largely failed to meet their goals. Back in 2002, CMS awarded 15 demonstration... Read more...

In Miami, medical students all get a briefing in the sometimes perplexing financial realities of their chosen profession--and some of them are a bit shocked by what they hear. For about 10 years, students at the University of Miami med school have spent a day at the headquarters of health insurer AvMed getting briefed on the latest financial issues facing practicing physicians. One-fourth of the med school's third-year class visits with health plan executives every three months. This …

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Designing smart disease management programs
Disease management programs may indeed save money. But if the vendors, providers and insurers involved in trialing such programs aren't smart about which patients they include, the whole effort could be little more than an exercise in frustration, suggests Scott MacStravic, PhD. Luckily, it's possible to set up programs that make financial and clinical sense, if they're tailored to individual patients, MacStravic says. Article

When patients get a call from an anonymous disease management staff nurse, they don't have a lot of incentive to participate in the management program. But there's other ways to get the job done. A new program developed by tire maker Goodyear found that if disease management programs bring a trusted clinician on site, enrollment in such programs jumped dramatically. Enrollment was particularly high if patients were invited to participate during a scheduled visit with a familiar clinician, according to research by CHD Meridian Healthcare. Release

Officials with the LSU charity system say that they're saving hundreds of millions of dollars a year thanks to their ongoing disease management program. While 20 states are experimenting with disease management programs for Medicaid and other indigent patients, LSU has been offering such programs at its charity hospitals for as many as ten years. The LSU programs focus on the effective management diabetes, asthma, cancer, congestive heart failure and HIV. The programs include standard …

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A new program from a Rochester, MI-based health management company has taken chronic disease management to the road. The company, Medical Network One, has developed a "Chronic Care Travel Team," an 18-member group of clinicians touching on all the bases needed to manage common chronic conditions. Assembling the group cost $1.5 million, but the cost is covered by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan. Even at that price, Medical Network One expects the team to eventually save money on chronic …

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Sure, building a practice around prevention works when you're Dr. Arthur Agatston, the renowned cardiologist behind the South Beach Diet book phenomenon. In a recent interview with a reporter, Agatston said that since he's given his practice a prevention focus, offering frequent personal contact with nurses and visits with a personal nutritionist, he's gotten down the number of heart attacks in his 2,800 patient base to virtually nil. The thing is, his practice loses money, a problem …

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Hoping to lower costs of running its public health care programs, the state of Connecticut is kicking off a series of disease management programs. The programs, which will be administered by the state Department of Social Services, will focus on patients with chronic, high-risk conditions such as diabetes, asthma and high blood pressure. Connecticut is just one of about 40 states which are planning or implementing programs targeting high-cost chronic illnesses, according to Governor M. …

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The Disease Management Association of America has issued guidelines for measuring outcomes in disease management programs, a move aimed at helping employers determine whether such programs actually reduce the cost of caring for chronic conditions. The guidelines offer several study design tips, including use of a "pre-post" design incorporating concurrent comparison or control groups, as well as using medical and pharmacy claims cost data to calculate the financial impact of DM programs. …

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