Health Plans More Likely To Offer Disease Management Programs

KSAT in San Antonio reports that in 2005, 60% of large employers offered health plans with disease management programs designed to help plan members to better manage their chronic illnesses. This is up from 39% of large employers offering similar programs in 2003, and the number continues to rise as employers face increasing health care costs from a relatively small percentage of plan members with expensive chronic illnesses.

Disease management programs are completely voluntary - the patient must opt in to the program. Once the patient agrees, he or she is assigned a personal nurse who coordinates their care and offers health care advice.

Employers adopting such plans find that they recoup their initial investment in the patients quickly, and then enjoy savings each year thereafter. Because the most costly component of health care is hospitalization, any effort to prevent visits to the ER or extended hospital stays is ultimately money well spent.