CVS Health Expands Diabetes Program, Includes Preventive Care
CVS Health’s new app-based and in-person solutions seek to increase diabetes preventive care and decrease hypertension.
Source: CVS Health
- CVS Health is expanding its diabetes care model to incorporate preventive care and treat hypertension.
This move comes after CVS Health has reported considerable success with the first iteration of its Transform Diabetes care model, which primarily focused on driving chronic disease management in uncontrolled diabetes.
This newest version of the Transform Diabetes Care model will integrate more preventive care approaches and boost efforts to treat hypertension, a significant comorbidity in patients with diabetes.
Among US adults, 34 percent are prediabetic and 90 percent of those individuals are unaware they may even have this condition.
To decrease the risk of prediabetics developing type 2 diabetes, of which 70 percent currently do, payers have focused on preventive care to address the disease.
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Now CVS Health is doing the same, building on its Transform Diabetes Care program.
CVS Health’s new preventive care module relies on advanced technology to identify potential pre-diabetic members and track their progress. The module uses CVS Health’s pharmacy and medical data analytics to identify at-risk members.
Members who are selected for the module receive a digital scale. When the member steps onto the scale it records their weight and transfers data automatically to their online, personal profile.
The module also relies on a CDC-approved app that guides members through a 12-month curriculum. The app is designed to help members adhere to their program by sending reminders and providing a virtual community.
In addition to digital health support, the module incorporates an in-person element that aims for personalization and convenience. Members can meet with MinuteClinic practitioners and health experts for coaching to improve weight, activity levels, exercise, and to maintain their new, healthier lifestyle.
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CVS Health uses a similar approach when expanding its program to address hypertension.
Members who have diabetes are twice as likely to have hypertension than those who are not diabetic. The most widespread comorbidity, hypertension can lead to kidney disease, heart attack, and strokes.
However, this comorbidity can be challenging to tackle for a couple of reasons.
For one, the disease is asymptomatic, making it difficult to identify.
Furthermore, only one in five patients adhere to their medications, which can be discouraging for clinicians and patients alike. Providers do not have time to educate their patients and discuss adherence.
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CVS Health’s hypertension module seeks to solve these issues by offering new, customizable approaches.
Like the preventive care module, the hypertension module combines technological adherence and tracking methods with individual, in-person coaching.
In addition to these methods, this module seeks to address the healthcare costs which prevent many diabetics from pursuing medical assistance and a healthy lifestyle. Members have two free vouchers for metabolic MinuteClinic visits, devoid of out-of-pocket costs.
Members who are assigned to the hypertension module also receive a connected blood pressure cuff. The cuff sends blood pressure data to the member’s online profile, where it can be accessed by the member or their healthcare coaches at any time.
Personal, on-demand coaches are available to help members with condition management, improvement opportunities, health behaviors, and goal setting.
The move comes after CVS Health has seen success with its first iteration of the Transform Diabetes Care model. The program aimed to address the one in 11 US adults suffering from diabetes and which payers and providers are both working to engage in care management.
A diabetic’s treatment options are highly affected by their health plan. Fifty percent of diabetic patients fail to reach medication adherence, with many forgoing treatment due to high deductibles.
CVS Health stepped in with the Transform Diabetes Care program to try to bridge the gap between affordability and convenience. Using remote biometric monitoring, CVS Health developed the Transform Diabetes Care program to address care at the local level by providing interventions led by healthcare professionals.
The program works in tandem with a prescribed health plan and aims to support the management of members’ conditions by tracking their progress outside of the clinic and by providing flexible, convenient points of care.
In addition to providing an integrated model of coordinated care that addressed members’ medical, physical, emotional, and social needs, the program offered analytics to help continue improvement and allow members to access personal health data.
The program has been successful, CVS Health reported, with over 50 percent of its participants with uncontrolled diabetes moving to a controlled condition.
Going forward, CVS Health hopes to see similar successes with the expanded program. Specifically, CVS Health hopes to see 50 percent of those enrolled in its preventive care module reduce their weight by at least five percent.
Its hypertension module aims to decrease systolic blood pressure by 9 mmHg among members with blood pressure above 130/80 and a decrease of 12 mmHg for those with a blood pressure above 140/90.
Overall, the goal of this newest version of the Transform Diabetes Care is to reduce the incidence of diabetes by 58 percent over the next three years.
