Reminder: It’s Time For Your Patient To Come In For A Visit

Aetna announced that it is launching electronic alerts to 320,000 physicians. They will be called Care Considerations.

My understanding is that they will use the ActiveHealth engine to compare claims data to treatment guidelines to identify gaps in care. They will then send the physician a message through the NaviMedix platform and through fax, e-mail, or the phone.

This will be an interesting program to follow:

• Will physicians take action off the alerts? How?
• Since the NaviMedix system will allow two-way interaction, what will they say about the alerts?
• Will this impact health outcomes?
• Are these preventative alerts or are they catching things late in the lifecycle of a disease?
• What will patient’s reactions be to their physician reaching out to them? I would be a little hesitant.

I am a little surprised that the program doesn’t include outreach to the patient also. I would be skeptical of a request to schedule an appointment without some understanding of why I should do it. Otherwise, it would look like an obvious attempt to drive revenue. It reminds me of something a physician said to me once. He said that they can control revenue in many cases. For a patient with mild pain, they can send them home and suggest they take Advil and call them if the pain continues. Or, they can write them a prescription, send them for a test, and schedule a follow-up visit in a few days.

This gets to the issue of Defensive Medicine which I talked about a few days ago.