By DAVID WENNBERG, MD

The results are in: population-based care management doesn’t just improve patient satisfaction – it also can significantly reduce medical costs.

It is widely known that chronic disease accounts for 75% of the total cost of healthcare in the United States. In the late 1990s, the care management industry grew out of the need to combat this problem, by increasing medication compliance, reducing gaps in care, and helping individuals become more empowered to actively manage their own health.

Care management programs have long been shown to increase medication compliance and use of other preventative services, and individuals who participate in care management programs find them extremely valuable. Yet the care management industry has always faced challenges in verifiably demonstrating the effectiveness of its programs in  reducing medical costs. Several methodologies have been created to attempt to reverse-engineer a calculation of savings delivered by care management programs, but the gold standard of healthcare effectiveness measures, a randomized controlled trial, has rarely been done and none in a large population.

I’m pleased to say that this is no longer the case. A study from Health Dialog appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine today, uses a randomized controlled trial to definitively show the savings delivered by an enhanced care management program. The trial looked at 174,120 individuals over twelve months, measuring those individuals’ health outcomes and the total savings as a result of an enhanced care management program. The program included chronic condition management and patient decision support programs, and these services were delivered telephonically as well as online.Continue reading…