Page 28 - Layout 1

DIABETES AND
OBESITY

(continued from page 24)

would be: Age, weight, ethnicity, and gender, to name a
few. That list could be cross-referenced with known lab
data to determine whether the “population of interest”
had their Hba1c or blood sugars tested and resulted. If
not, scheduling the patient for a visit to perform such a
test in the population of interest might reveal undiag-
nosed patients and pre-diabetic patients. Treating the un-
diagnosed patient and the pre-diabetic patient is the
benefit of population health management.
The implications for physicians is that health plans
want to contract with physicians, IPAs, ACOs, and
MSOs that contract with high-performing physicians, and can stand how to assist you in the population health management
demonstrate high STAR ratings. Those physicians that have lower arena. The good news is that to the extent that primary care physi-
STAR ratings may find cancelation notices from the managed care cians do a better job managing the outcome of the patient, they
companies. The private Medicare Advantage companies, in the will receive additional pay as a result. And it is appropriate to re-
long run, will not contract with physicians that are doing a poor ward physicians that effectuate the improved outcomes of pa-
job managing their population of patients. Thus, if you are a tients.
physician that is looking to participate in population health man-
agement, you might want to first look at organizations that under- Alan Preston is a member of the BCMS Publications Committee.

28 San Antonio Medicine • December 2018