title: Opt-in medical management strategies.
abstract: Historically, health plans and disease management companies have employed "opt-out" strategies for evaluating medical management outcomes across larger populations, targeting the entire population of eligible individuals and allowing those not interested to opt out. Recent observations that the predominant effort of these programs is on high-risk patients has lead some managers to suggest that the focus be on only those individuals with an anticipated higher effectiveness and lower cost to the payers of such services. They believe such "opt-in" models, in which only higher risk participants are targeted and enrolled, will deliver higher value. The use of common opt-in models, however, is not only methodologically unsound, but experience in the field suggests there may be less overall effect as well. Calculation methods for developing impact remain extremely sensitive to methodology
authors.affiliation: Healthcare Informatics, Matria Healthcare, Inc., Marietta, Georgia 30067, USA. Don_Fetterolf@Matria.com
authors.forename: Donald
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Fetterolf
authors.forename: Marty
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Olson
mesh_terms: D019033:Delivery of Health Care, Integrated / Q000592:standards*; D019468:Disease Management; D006801:Humans; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011361:Professional Competence / Q000592:standards*; D011785:Quality Assurance, Health Care / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States