Program addresses consumers’ concerns
Diabetes program must build loyalty to payer
As a disease management service, Nashville, TN-based Diabetes Treatment Centers of America's (DTCA) diabetes management program has to address those issues deemed most important by the MCO and the payer, as well as the consumer. DTCA executive vice president Robert E. Stone says there are essentially four priorities:
1. Improve health care status for the populations, and in particular, for the populations with chronic diseases. "Payers are coming to recognize that there are no cost savings possible without improved health care status," explains Stone. "The way you reduce costs for this population is to make and keep them healthy."
2. Reduce costs.
3. Improve member and provider satisfaction. "Most of the health plans that we talk to recognize that their two biggest assets are membership and their provider network," says Stone. "As local competition for market share becomes more intense, they’re very interested in programs that more effectively bind the membership and provider network to the organization."
4. Demonstrate to customers improved productivity in terms of reduced lost-work time, reduced sick days, etc. "So they’re looking at how to market these programs upstream to their employer customers," Stone says. "That’s a very early trend."
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