These Patients Are Hard to Treat
A study examined a popular approach that coordinated care for the most expensive patients, and found that the project did not reduce hospital admissions.
By Reed Abelson
Jan. 8, 2020, 5:00 p.m. ET
“Putting a patient with numerous chronic conditions in touch with a primary care doctor for 15 minutes or finding someone a treatment program while that person was still living on the streets or in a shelter is not enough to make a significant difference…”
“While the patients had fewer hospital stays, the decline in admissions was the result of a phenomenon known as regression to the mean… Patients with extremely high medical costs tend to see their expenses naturally decline over time, becoming closer to the average.”
“It is important not to give up, said Dr. Brenner, who likened these efforts to those of cancer researchers trying to find the right treatment for individuals with a certain genetic makeup. “It took us 50 years to figure out cancer,” he said.”
Upshot
The New Health Care
Deflating Results of Major Study Point to Better Ways to Cut Health Care Waste
A program that focused on the patients who needed the most care didn’t keep them from landing back in the hospital.
Jan. 8, 2020, 5:00 p.m. ET
By Austin Frakt
““The Camden model targets a population that has a much more varied set of medical needs and social complexity, and with higher health care spending, than the existing successful models…””