Developing the Right Approaches to Chronic Care in Medicare

Effective chronic care for people with complex and multiple chronic conditions requires the involvement of physicians and coordination among multiple treating physicians. Approaches to chronic care management have become common in private sector health plans, however, Medicare is just beginning to explore both the implications of chronic illness and approaches to chronic illness care. The recent Medicare Modernization Act provides for testing a private sector vendor approach to chronic illness care. However, the approach is likely to be of limited benefit to a significant portion of beneficiaries who have complex chronic care needs. Medicare has an important opportunity to develop truly new and effective approaches to chronic care that take into account the different nature of the senior population relative to the working age population for whom the current private sector approaches are designed. More: DOC, RTF, PDF