Disease Management May Not Be the Answer

Disease management programs have been touted as a solution to rising healthcare costs pertaining to chronic diseases. However, a new study shows that these programs do not actually result in overall savings. According to MSNBC, the RAND Corp. recently conducted research into disease management programs and found that they do lead to better health outcomes, but fail to live up to the promise of lower health costs. Although improved health outcomes do translate to lower spending on emergencies and hospitalizations, they can also lead to higher spending on medication and lab tests. Furthermore, the disease management program itself costs money to operate.