1999 Guide to Disease Management on the Internet is an essential desk companion that can help put you among the cutting-edge organizations combining online and disease management technology. Click here for more information. Succeeding in Disease Management Programs for Medicare and Medicaid helps you get and keep contracts for providing disease management-related services to government healthcare programs. Click here for more information. A few concrete examples would be helpful.
Some plans spend nothing, while other plans spend millions of dollars per year.
Disease management programs vary significantly in terms of how they are defined, structured, staffed, and implemented. A true ROI is contingent upon numerous variables, none of which are constant from one health plan to another, or even from one disease management program to another. When assessing the ROI associated with disease management programs, health plans are in the unenviable position of having to estimate what would have occurred, from an outcomes perspective, had there been no disease management program at all - a difficult, if not impossible, task. For reasons cited above, the concept of a typical ROI for disease management programs is illusive at best, and concrete examples are hard to come by. Such reasons might include, for example, market demand, compliance with NCQA, and a genuine desire to improve patient satisfaction, quality of life, and health outcomes.