BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that telephone interventions designed to promote patients' self-management skills and improve patient-physician communication can increase patients' satisfaction and their use of preventive services. The effect of such a strategy on health care costs remains controversial. METHODS: We conducted a stratified, randomized study of 174,120 subjects to assess the effect of a telephone-based care-management strategy on medical costs and resource utilization. Health coaches contacted subjects with selected medical conditions and predicted high health care costs to instruct them about shared decision making, self-care, and behavioral change. The subjects were randomly assigned to either a usual-support group or an enhanced-support group. Although the same telephone intervention was delivered to the two groups, a greater number of subjects in the enhanced-support group were made eligible for coaching through the lowering of cutoff points for predicted future costs and expansion of the number of qualifying health conditions. Primary outcome measures at 1 year were total medical costs and number of hospital admissions. RESULTS: At baseline, medical costs and resource utilization were similar in the two groups. After 12 months, 10.4% of the enhanced-support group and 3.7% of the usual-support group received the telephone intervention. The average monthly medical and pharmacy costs per person in the enhanced-support group were 3.6% ($7.96) lower than those in the usual-support group ($213.82 vs. $221.78, P=0.05); a 10.1% reduction in annual hospital admissions (P<0.001) accounted for the majority of savings. The cost of this intervention program was less than $2.00 per person per month. CONCLUSIONS: A targeted telephone care-management program was successful in reducing medical costs and hospitalizations in this population-based study. (Funded by Health Dialog Services; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00793260.)
RCT Entities:
BACKGROUND: Studies have shown that telephone interventions designed to promote patients' self-management skills and improve patient-physician communication can increase patients' satisfaction and their use of preventive services. The effect of such a strategy on health care costs remains controversial. METHODS: We conducted a stratified, randomized study of 174,120 subjects to assess the effect of a telephone-based care-management strategy on medical costs and resource utilization. Health coaches contacted subjects with selected medical conditions and predicted high health care costs to instruct them about shared decision making, self-care, and behavioral change. The subjects were randomly assigned to either a usual-support group or an enhanced-support group. Although the same telephone intervention was delivered to the two groups, a greater number of subjects in the enhanced-support group were made eligible for coaching through the lowering of cutoff points for predicted future costs and expansion of the number of qualifying health conditions. Primary outcome measures at 1 year were total medical costs and number of hospital admissions. RESULTS: At baseline, medical costs and resource utilization were similar in the two groups. After 12 months, 10.4% of the enhanced-support group and 3.7% of the usual-support group received the telephone intervention. The average monthly medical and pharmacy costs per person in the enhanced-support group were 3.6% ($7.96) lower than those in the usual-support group ($213.82 vs. $221.78, P=0.05); a 10.1% reduction in annual hospital admissions (P<0.001) accounted for the majority of savings. The cost of this intervention program was less than $2.00 per person per month. CONCLUSIONS: A targeted telephone care-management program was successful in reducing medical costs and hospitalizations in this population-based study. (Funded by Health Dialog Services; ClinicalTrials.gov number, NCT00793260.)
Authors: Kouta Ito; William H Shrank; Jerry Avorn; Amanda R Patrick; Troyen A Brennan; Elliot M Antman; Niteesh K Choudhry Journal: Health Serv Res Date: 2012-09-21 Impact factor: 3.402
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Authors: Paul A Heidenreich; Nancy M Albert; Larry A Allen; David A Bluemke; Javed Butler; Gregg C Fonarow; John S Ikonomidis; Olga Khavjou; Marvin A Konstam; Thomas M Maddox; Graham Nichol; Michael Pham; Ileana L Piña; Justin G Trogdon Journal: Circ Heart Fail Date: 2013-04-24 Impact factor: 8.790
Authors: Rashid L Bashshur; Gary W Shannon; Brian R Smith; Dale C Alverson; Nina Antoniotti; William G Barsan; Noura Bashshur; Edward M Brown; Molly J Coye; Charles R Doarn; Stewart Ferguson; Jim Grigsby; Elizabeth A Krupinski; Joseph C Kvedar; Jonathan Linkous; Ronald C Merrell; Thomas Nesbitt; Ronald Poropatich; Karen S Rheuban; Jay H Sanders; Andrew R Watson; Ronald S Weinstein; Peter Yellowlees Journal: Telemed J E Health Date: 2014-06-26 Impact factor: 3.536