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Medicare
Disease Management and the Medical Home Model: Competing or Complementary?
I feel like handing out cigars.
My article — “Disease Management and the Medical Home Model: Competing and Complimentary” — has been published in the latest issue of Disease Management and Health Outcomes, a peer reviewed journal.
I’ve arranged with the publisher to make copies available through my website. You can download a copy here.
Why is this an important topic? Here’s the big picture:
Current chronic disease management demonstration/pilot projects in Medicare are showing little evidence of success.
Physicians have woken up to […]
First “Official” Report on Medicare Health Support DM Pilot Finds Virtually No Evidence of Success
I know that I’m sounding like a broken record.
The first “official” results from the Medicare Health Support (MHS) disease management (DM) pilot projects were published last week. While the results are preliminary, there is virtually no evidence of any early success. Here are three key findings from the executive summary of the report:
Mathematica Researchers Summarize Disappointing Results Across 4 Medicare DM Demonstrations
Presenting at the Annual Academy Health Research Meeting earlier this week, representatives from Mathematica Research and CMS (Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services) presented findings across several Medicare disease management (DM) demonstration/pilot programs.
Again, the findings show minimal evidence of success in any of the Medicare DM programs. Several of the slides from Randall Brown of Mathematica cut to the chase:
A Medicare Administrator’s “To Do” List: the EHR, Chronic Disease Management, Primary Care….
Let’s drop in on a top Medicare administrator as he reviews his “to do” list over a morning cup of coffee.
TO DO
1) George says everybody’s gotta have an EHR by 2014
tougher than getting a man to the moon in the 60s
stall — G will be gone by then
2) solve chronic disease crisis
chronic disease costs are killing us, 5% of seniors account for 50% of costs
baby boomers hit the fan in 2010
note to self — drop the cheeseburger at lunch
3) solve primary […]
Evidence for Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM): The Glass is More than Half Full
Over the years, there have been a number of meta-analyses examining hundreds of studies relating to effectiveness of RPM. The latest one of these is Systematic Review of Home Telemonitoring for Chronic Diseases: The Evidence Base, published in the May/June 2007 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association (JAMIA).
My colleague Tim Gee, respected fellow blogger and world renowned connectologist, summarizes this latest study under the headline “Impact of Remote Monitoring Still Inconclusive”.
Tim, I’m concerned that folks might draw […]
A Founding Father of DM Astonishingly Declares: “My Kid is Ugly”
Al Lewis, one of the founding fathers of DM, has shaped the face of the DM industry probably more than other any single individual. (This is all fine unless you happen to be the person whose face is being shaped by Al.)
Al has been unabashedly pro-DM. Until now. Al writes in a recent article in Managed Healthcare Executive:
Disease management as we now define it may be on its last legs, though no one knows it yet. The Disease Management Purchasing Consortium has noticed that the savings in all […]
Physician EHR Implementation Is Doggone Difficult
Now that Medicare’s future direction for chronic care management has become murky, I’ve started to pay more attention to the many other demonstration/pilot projects that Medicare has in the works relating to chronic care.
In April Medicare announced roll out of its DOQ-IT U (Doctor’s Office Quality — Information Technology University), as a part of the Physician Focused Quality Initiative. DOQ-IT U is an interactive, Web-based tool designed to provide solo and small-to-medium sized physician practices with the education for successful […]
Links: April 23, 2007
End of the Mississippi Medicare Health Support Program
McKesson Health Solutions; April 7, 2007
Recommendations for Integration of Chronic Disease Programs: Are Your Programs Linked?
Preventing Chronic Disease; April 2007
Commercial Health Plans’ Care Management Activities and the Impact on Costs, Quality and Outcomes
Congressional Testimony, Center for Studying Health System Change; April 11, 2007
Medicare and DM: Synthesis in 500 Words
Can I interest you in a 2 minute summary of DM in Medicare? Please read my posting Medicare Chronic Disease Management Direction? It’s Anybody’s Guess on the World Health Care Blog.
The World Health Care Blog is a unique experiment sponsored by the World Health Care Congress. Please also check out the excellent health care blogs of my fellow bloggers:
Tony Chen at Hospital Impact
Emily Devoto at The Antidote: Counterspin for Health Care and Health News
Matthew Holt at The Health Care Blog
Derek Lowe at In the […]
Introducing: the POE Award and the POO Award
Today I’m introducing two new awards:
The POE Award — for plain old English
The POO Award — for pervasive obfuscatory oration
When I work on projects, the room typically has a combination of people who are native speakers of three very different languages: