Integrated Care Model Lowers Health System Medical Costs
An integrated care model from Cigna helped lower medical costs, reduce hospital admissions, and improve care quality for a Texas-area health system.
Source: Thinkstock
By - Cigna’s integrated care model partnership with Texas-based Catalyst Health helped reduce the health system’s total medical costs to 5.6 percent below industry averages, the organizations announced in a press release.
The Cigna Collaborative Care program allowed Catalyst Health to enhance care quality and cost-effectiveness by using patient-specific data from Cigna. The data helped Catalyst Health identify readmission risks, patient populations overdue for a chronic disease screening, and groups of patients that may have skipped a prescription refill or medical appointment.
Catalyst Health reported that the program helped reduce hospital admissions and emergency room visits to 19 percent below competitor averages while improving coordination with extended care teams, pharmacists, and social workers.
Additionally, Catalyst Health leveraged data from Cigna to drive a 7.3 percent increase in the rate of eye exams for diabetic patients, a 4.5 percent increase in the number of of diabetic patients whose blood sugars were well-controlled, a 6.9 percent increase in the appropriate use of antibiotics, and a 10.9 percent increase in the appropriate use of back-pain imaging tests.
Fredrick Watson, MD, senior medical director for Cigna in Texas and Oklahoma, praised Catalyst Health for their ability to achieve success in an integrated care model.
“We congratulate Catalyst Health Network for its commitment to Cigna Collaborative Care and for its strong focus on quality improvement,” Watson said. “These results show what’s possible when a health plan and health care professionals collaborate to achieve common goals: better health and a better experience for the people we jointly serve.
Christopher Crow, MD, and president of Catalyst Health Network, added that working with Cigna in the Collaborative Care Program helped facilitate Catalyst’s organizational goals of collectively improving the health of the communities they serve.
“We are incredibly proud of the results achieved as we continue our commitment to improve quality health care while reducing patient costs,” Crow said.
“Our relationship with Cigna is making a positive impact on our patients’ health and the care they receive from our physicians, which is a direct result of our collaborative effort to transform health care in our communities.”
