The outlook for mobile health is bright: Using an "Internet of Things" model to halt the progression of lifestyle disease could be our best chance to reap mind-boggling cost savings.
With millions of new Medicaid enrollees entering the insurance pool and a shift away from the fee-for-service payment model - all set against the backdrop of state Medicaid departments lagging behind Medicare when it comes to accountable care organizations - the opportunity to reach these patient populations is going to skyrocket in the near future.
mHealth inherently starts with each patient in his or her home and builds a solution around that patient's appropriate group and their needs. We have literally hundreds if not thousands of patient groups to consider here.
Tremendous savings opportunities lie in managing chronic diseases like diabetes, particularly in reducing readmissions and improving medicine compliance, but these possibilities still don't touch the potential cost savings of behavior change and prevention.
That is our cost savings "sweet spot.”
What the statistics say
As we crunched some numbers this week on cost savings for a payer pilot, we were bowled over by the diabetes stats.
Just to recap the highlights:
- 1 in 3 Americans will have diabetes by 2050
- Total diabetes care costs $245 billion annually
- The number of yearly ambulatory visits per year is 37.3 million
- Diabetes inpatient hospital care costs $76 billion
- Yearly per-patient cost estimates rose from $6,600 to $7,900
- Diabetes drugs constitute 12 percent of healthcare expenditures nationally
- Government payers outlay 62 percent of diabetes cost nationally
That last point is particularly telling. With federal and state government agencies paying such a hefty chunk of the diabetes ticket, we need to reach new Medicaid enrollees before they develop pre-diabetes or diabetes, to ultimately reduce the number of diabetic Americans well ahead of that 2050 estimate. We’re talking real money here, folks.
The end game
There are so many patient groups, so many solutions, so many objectives, that creating a mobile health strategy for any organization is certainly complex and has many facets. Doing so at the state Medicaid or federal level is even more complicated.
The whole point of mobile health is to change behavior. Along the way, of course, we collect a lot of data that people need for their respective reporting and we might even wind up with some nice unintended marketing side-effects.
And that’s where the Internet of Things, the cadre of devices and apps that coming generations not only uses but expects, creates the opportunity to reach them.
Waiting to help this patient group and focusing on those smaller pain points like readmit reduction and med compliance, however, is like shooting yourself in the foot.
Brandi Harless is CEO and Natalie Hodge, MD, is chief medical officer of Personal Medicine Plus.
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