Opening the door to coordination of care through teachable moments

The challenge for care coordination is to identify members at a moment in time when they are receptive to intervention and provide the appropriate care management services. This manuscript describes a pilot program using inbound nurse advice calls from members to engage them in a care management program including disease management (DM). Annual medical claims diagnoses were used to identify members and their associated disease conditions. For each condition group for each year, nurse advice call data were used to calculate inbound nurse advice service call rates for each group. A pilot program was set up to engage inbound nurse advice callers in a broader discussion of their health concerns and refer them to a care management program. Among the program results, both the call rate by condition group and the correlation between average costs and call rates show that higher cost groups of members call the nurse advice service disproportionately more than lower cost members. Members who entered the DM programs through the nurse advice service were more likely to stay in the program than those who participated in the standard opt-in program. The results of this pilot program suggest that members who voluntarily call in to the nurse advice service for triage are at a "teachable moment" and highly motivated to participate in appropriate care management programs. The implication is that the nurse advice service may well be an innovative and effective way to enhance participation in a variety of care management programs including DM.