News About Healthways and Minnesota BCBS

If you've been a regular reader of the Disease Management Care Blog, this announcement from Minnesota BCBS shouldn't be a surprise. It's dropping Healthways as a supplier of disease management services. In a prior post (several paragraphs down) the DMCB first previewed the dynamics behind the decision, while in this post, it unveiled the results of a positive pilot involving a Medical Home partnership.

The DMCB still thinks the market is going to move toward various combinations of in and out sourced disease management components. In this instance, it suspects that Minnesota believes it can 'outsource' the more intense care management services to many of the larger physician clinics in its network while keeping the more 'scalable' telephonic services in-house.

It notes the article says the intent is to hire '90' nurses. That's a lot of coin. If that's price competitive with the contract price of Healthways' services, no wonder the disease management industry is thriving. It's also testimony to the cost of doing disease management with the right degree of infrastructure - and speaks volumes to the prospect of physician-groups affording to take on remote coaching.

It also believes there will be no 'single' best combination, since what works in the Twin Cities doesn't necessarily work in Phoenix. One of the major determinants of what combination works best will be the ratio of outcomes to price.

Can Minnesota BCBS execute? Time will tell.

May 12: Addendum. The link in the first paragraph went cold. It's been fixed to lead to another article. In the meantime, this article is helpful also.