By REBECCA FOGG
Fueled by Americans’ urgent need for better chronic disease care and insurers’ march from fee-for-service to value-based payments, innovation in population health management is accelerating across the health care industry. But it’s hardly new, and CareMore Health, a recent acquisition of publicly-traded insurer Anthem, has been on the vanguard of the trend for over twenty years.
CareMore Health provides coordinated, interdisciplinary care to high-need patients referred by primary care physicians in nine states and Washington, D.C. The care encompasses individualized prevention and chronic disease management services and coaching, provided on an outpatient basis at CareMore’s Care Clinics. It also includes oversight of episodic acute care, via CareMore “extensivists” and case managers who ensure effective coordination across providers and care sites before, during and after patient hospitalizations.
The majority of CareMore patients are covered by Medicare Advantage or Medicaid, and company-reported results, as well as a Commonwealth Fund analysis, indicate that the patient-centered, relationship-based model leads to fewer emergency room visits, specialist visits and hospitalizations for segments of the covered population. They also suggest that it leads to cost efficiencies relative to comparable plans in its markets of operation.
