In the “About Us” Tab of our web site we indicate that our expertise is current. What does that mean? It means that we stay educated and practiced on current tools and trends and apply them within our experience for a positive result.
Disease Management programs can be incorporated into Employee Risk Based Incentive Plans. Risk Based Incentive Plans when used with a strategic employee cost shift can provide an immediate employer cost savings and a sustainable budgeting for 3-5 years.
Disease management is an instrument for employers to use in benefiting not only themselves in labor and benefit costs but the employee as well. We have 7 years of experience in the constructive use of disease management programs and their design. In a number of cases the return to the sponsoring organizations were in the area of $3:$1. The return to the employees is good health and lifestyle.
As a company we appreciate the following definition of disease management (which includes lifestyles):disease management is a system of reducing healthcare costs and improving the quality of life for employees by preventing or minimizing the effects of a chronic condition or lifestyle issue through collaborative care; employee, counselor, intrinsic coach, physician and other appropriate health care professionals
The underlying premise of disease management is that when the right tools, experts, protocols and modeling are applied to an employer population, then labor costs (specifically: absenteeism, presenteeism and direct medical claims costs) can be minimized in the near as well as long term. The general idea is to ease the disease path (interventions), rather than cure the illness. This applies to lifestyle issues as well. Disease management can be applied to wherever there is an opportunity to take action to improve the quality of life and reduces costs for the employee and employer. Prevention is included as part of the program and is commonly called wellness.
Diabetes, Obesity, Hypertension, Hyperlipidemia, Coronary Artery Disease, Congestive Heart Failure, Asthma and COPD are typical of chronic diseases identified and intervened upon in Disease Management. Lifestyle issue coaching would typically apply to smoking, pre-diabetes, exercise, nutrition, weight management and stress management when identified.
The identification of the individuals within the employer group who are in likely need of an intervention for disease management or lifestyle coaching is a very important aspect of the disease management program. This is typically done through the use of a Health Risk Assessment.
We believe that it is essential to have a Health Risk Assessment that will identify the individuals AND provide for an assessment of the individual’s likelihood to engage with a program to help them, an assessment of the individual’s self management of his disease, the state of clinical compliance (does the individual receive the proper treatment under national guidelines for his disease) and an overall risk score for judgment of overall health.
Once identified the process of intervention begins with the proper disease management program or lifestyle coach through a triage process. The process must also include the collaboration with the personal physician and other health care professionals as warranted by the individual’s condition and disease.
