Implications of Healthcare Utilization of Diabetes Disease Management

摘要

Faced with rising healthcare costs and limited resources, healthcare costs need to be contained. Consistent with its extraordinary effect on the health of Americans, the costs of diabetes to the U.S. healthcare system are enormous. Total estimated cost of diabetes in 2007 was $174 billion, including $116 billion in excess medical expenditures and $58 billion in reduced national productivity. Medical costs attributed to diabetes include $27 billion for care to directly treat diabetes, $58 billion to treat the portion of diabetes- related chronic complications that are attributed to diabetes, and $31 billion in excess general medical costs. The purpose of this study is to determine whether sustained hemoglobin HbA1c testing among patients is followed by reductions in healthcare utilization. The intent of which is to answer the following research question. 'Is there a utilization difference in Outpatient visits using Disease Management to treat and manage patients with diabetes' Standard regression was conducted to determine the accuracy of the independent (HbA1c Testing 2005, 2006 and 2007), predicting outpatient utilization of patients at Fort Knox MEDDAC that were diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. The final results of the linear regression indicate that the overall model significantly predicts of outpatient utilization, R2=.048, R2(adj)=.045, F= 19.047, P.