SAN MATEO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Primary care physicians (“PCPs”) can more effectively manage the total cost of care when managing the healthcare needs of a covered population. Cave Consulting Group (“CCGroup”) reached this conclusion after evaluating the performance of several health plan accountable care and value-based reimbursement programs.
“On average, PCPs are involved in treating 57% of all prevalent medical condition episodes of care. This means patients are self-referring to specialists 43% of the time,” stated Dr. Douglas G. Cave, President of CCGroup.
He continued, “For those medical conditions with significant practice variations, PCPs are involved in treating only 40% of the patient episodes of care. Examples of medical conditions with significant practice variations are low back pain, degenerative joint disease, headaches, derangement of knee, hernias, and ischemic heart disease.”