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Lowering Medicare Costs For Chronic Illness
A three-year experiment to see whether Medicare could prevent expensive hospital visits for people with chronic conditions like congestive heart failure and diabetes has suggested that such an approach may cost more than it saves. The program failed to meet the financial target of an overall savings to Medicare of 5%.
In the experiment, nurses periodically placed phone calls to patients to check whether they are taking their drugs and seeing the right doctors. The idea is that keeping people healthier can help patients avoid costly complications. But the preliminary findings indicate that the government is unlikely to save money. Medicare says the experiment has not reduced medical bills enough to offset the cost, as much as $2,000 a year for each patient.
Experts say that Medicare was too optimistic about how easy it would be to prevent costly complications and hospital visits by patients who are very sick. The experiment’s nurses spent most of their time on rudimentary issues, like directing someone to a specialist to get better care, although “numerous diabetics didn’t even know what an endocrinologist was.” Medicare signed up patients who were much sicker than they had expected, and most of the patients were already so ill that it was no longer a preventive program.
Some health care experts say Medicare should seek other ways of managing the care of the chronically ill, like the development of so-called “medical homes,” where a doctor with a team of other professionals oversees a patient’s care. A few doctors’ groups involved in a separate Medicare experiment have reported some success.
Whatever happens with this particular program, Medicare says it wants to keep experimenting. “We’re not giving up on this stuff,” said a Medicare spokesman. “We definitely want these programs to work.”
Source: New York Times
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LINKS FROM PAST ARTICLES
- Heart Scans Stll Covered By Medicare (March 2008)
- Cost of Medicare Advantage Plans Questioned (February 2008)
- Part D Premiums To Rise (February 2008)
- Medicare Covers Shingles Vaccine (February 2008)
- Slower Growth in Medicare Budget (January 2008)
- Retirement Plans May Cut Health Insurance Benefits (January 2008)
- Medicare Cuts Payout on 2 Cancer Drugs (December 2007)
- CareGiver Costs Rise (November 2007)
- Part B Premiums To Rise (October 2007)
- Part D Premiums Lower in 2008 (August 2007)
- Medicare Changes Coverage For Anemia Drugs (August 2007)
- How Can Medicare Help Me Stay Healthy? (July 2007)
- Home Infusion Therapy (June 2007)
- 5 Ways to Lower Your Drug Costs (April 2007)
- New Edition of the Guide to Home Health Care Agencies (May 2007)
- Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ 2007 Report Summary (May 2007)
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