We Can Improve Care Management

As a physician and CIO, I ’m quick to spot inefficiencies in healthcare workflow. More importantly, as the care navigator for my family, I have extensive firsthand experience with patient facing processes.My wife ’s cancer treatment, my father’s end of life care, and my own recent primary hypertension diagnosis taught me how we can do better.Last week, when my wife received a rejection in coverage letter from Harvard Pilgrim/Caremark, it highlighted the imperative we have to improve care management workflow in the US.Since completing her estrogen positive, progesterone positive, HER2 negative breast cancer treatment in 2012 (chemotherapy, surgery, radiation), she ’s been maintained on depot lupron and tamoxifen to suppress estrogen.  After three years on a protocol of 22.5mg of lupron every 3 months, her insurer and pharmacy benefits manager decided that 11.25mg was an equally effective dose and sent her a letter telling her they would no longer cover 22.5mg dosing.Here ’s the actual letter she received.Harvard Pilgrim writes:  " HPHC has not made arbitrary decisions on the Lupron dosage for breast cancer, nor with any other policies for that matter. Rather, HPHC has implemented an IV drug management program using the best peer review medical evidence and professional societies guidelines. In the case of oncology drugs, the program has adopted recommendation from the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN), a not-for-profit alliance of 27 leading...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs