Health Care Costs
Using a patient-centered management approach to treat patients with complex conditions can reduce overuse of health care services and cut treatment costs without affecting survival rates, a study in the American Journal of Managed Care found.
Researchers found that patients using patient-centered management had fewer inpatient admissions, emergency department visits, days spent in the hospital and lower costs. Conversely, patients had more hospice and home care days. The study found that patients reported very high satisfaction with patient-centered management.
The authors concluded that patients and their families might accept patient-centered management as an alternative to hospice care (Sweeney et al., American Journal of Managed Care, February 2007).