The government's "failure" to better coordinate care for chronically ill Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries "could undermine efforts to ensure financial security for many retirees," according to Lois Quam -- CEO of Ovations, the UnitedHealth Group division that focuses on the needs of people over age 50 -- in a Boston Globe opinion piece.
The current "fragmentation of care" under traditional fee-for-service systems "can lead to poor health outcomes that are unnecessarily costly and draining for patients and physicians alike," Quam writes. She states that chronically ill patients need a "coordination of multiple treatments, health maintenance and prevention of disease," and a few small programs have shown that such an approach can save money and improve care. She concludes, "If we wait until Washington deals with Social Security and other issues on its agenda, we may simply run out of time."
Posted by schwitz at March 16, 2005 08:15 AM