Enrollees in the program are gleaned from precertification files or come voluntarily after they hear about it from their physicians. Pain management is crucial, Crocker said, because untreated pain can lead to complications like dehydration. The program also monitors breast cancer patients degree of nausea by closely engineering antinausea medication. The third step is to be proactive in the mental-health area screening for signs of depression. The challenge to disease management, as Crocker sees it, is to realize that people deal with diseases differently.
Some programs are too clinical.
We could all benefit from approaching the programs in a different way. As disease management evolves, it will focus less on specific conditions than groups of people that fit a common profile. For subscribers over 65, for example, data can be collected through claims submitted by doctors, prescription data and lab tests. Patients that are high risk can be sorted out and contacted by their health-care provider to better manage their outcomes and improve health, said Al Lewis, executive director of Disease Management Purchasing Consortium and president of the Disease Management Association. Because of confidentiality matters, employees cannot be contacted individually.