Challenges in improving care for high-risk seniors in Medicare

Despite strong interest in improving care for high-risk elders, demonstration projects typically show negative results. This paper examines one large foundation-sponsored initiative to gain insight on why success often is so elusive. The findings indicate that specific flaws in concept, design, and implementation each make it more challenging for demonstrations to achieve their intended goals, especially those involving cost and utilization reductions. We speculate that part of the reason for this is that organizational and political processes lead to fundamentally conservative demonstrations that assume that small amounts of resources directed at incremental change can be effective in generating substantial change in organizations and can do so rapidly.