Can phone calls save 5% on health costs?
by Lola Butcher
You’re probably going to start hearing about “Deep Dive,” a huge randomized trial designed to compare an intensive patient-coaching program against a typical telephone-coaching effort.
Trial results, presented by David Wennberg, MD, MPH, president and COO, Health Dialog Analytic Solutions, indicate that more coaching contacts translate into fewer hospital stays, emergency room visits and physician appointments.
The savings? About 5 percent reduction in patient care costs–after the cost of the program–over the 12-month trial period.
Some audience members seemed a bit skeptical, but Wennberg’s co-presenter, Lance Lang, MD, national vice president, Health Net Inc., was not among them. Health Net members were subjects in the trial; after the trial ended, Health Net signed up to have Health Dialog’s intensive coaching intervention for all members who qualify.
Who makes money if intensive coaching becomes commonplace? Health Dialog or whoever provides the coaching, and the payers. Who loses? Physicians and hospitals, for whom a 5 percent reduction in revenues may seem rather daunting.
