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Pilot program for diabetes reduces emergency room visits, hospital admissions

Emergency room visits decrease 39 percent

February 19, 2009

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. - A HealthPartners pilot program that provides a financial incentive to participate in a medication therapy management program reduced emergency room visits and hospitals stays and improved health risk factors that can lead to serious medical problems such as amputations, blindness and heart attacks.

The pilot program is for state of Minnesota employees and their family members with diabetes who are receiving care at one of 15 HealthPartners Clinics. If patients participated in free counseling sessions with a licensed clinical pharmacist, they could get their co-payments reduced to zero for prescriptions for high cholesterol, high blood pressure, diabetes and for supplies such as blood sugar test strips and needles. Patients save an average of $600 a year in out-of-pocket costs. Studies show that counseling with a pharmacist identifies an average of two drug related problems for each patient.

"This is a win-win for patients and employers because patients have better health and lower out-of-pocket costs and and purchasers can reduces their costs and increase productivity," said Richard Bruzek, HealthPartners vice-president of pharmacy services.

Fewer ER visits, hospitalizations
Over a 12-month period, the 300 patients who participated in the pilot program had 39 percent fewer emergency room visits and 24 percent fewer hospital admissions compared to patients who chose not to participate. In addition, the number of patients who achieved optimal blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar, taking daily aspirin and were tobacco free more than doubled (137 percent), compared to a 35 percent increase among patients who did not participate in the program.

"The success of this program lies in the fact that the pharmacist can flag problems between visits to the doctor and help make changes before problems become worse," said Nathan Moracco, director, Employee Insurance Division, Minnesota Management & Budget.

HealthPartners pilot program is based on the Asheville Project, which also provides medication counseling. That project in North Carolina, found that counseling patients with diabetes cut medical costs by $1,200 to $1,872 per patient per year, decreased absenteeism and increased productivity.


About HealthPartners
Founded in 1957, the HealthPartners (www.healthpartners.com) family of healthcare companies serves more than one million medical and dental health plan members nationwide. It is the largest consumer-governed, nonprofit healthcare organization in the nation, providing care, coverage, research and education to improve the health of members, patients and the community. For the third year in a row, HealthPartners is rated one of the best commercial health plans in the nation by U.S. News & World Report, NCQA's "America's Best Health Plans 2007".

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