85% lower drug costs, 60% lower hospital admissions

[postulater]

from a change in the way HMO interacts with people.

It's not just the cost of the insurance that is the problem, but the way the service is provided. We need not only to have single payor, universal coverage, but we need integrative delivery so people are helped to stay healthy.

http://www.genengnews.com/news/bnitem.aspx?name=18004552

"Results of a follow-up study released today from the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics (May 2007;00:1-7) reinforce and amplify the effectiveness of an integrative IPA management model vs. conventional strategies to decrease clinical utilization and costs over an extended period of time and in a safe and highly regulated large Chicago HMO environment.

"Results of the study demonstrate clinical and cost utilization decreases based on 70,274 member-months over a seven-year period. Differences in utilization include: 60.2 percent in-hospital admissions, 59.0 percent hospital days, 62.0 percent outpatient surgeries and procedures and 85 percent in pharmaceutical costs when compared with conventional medicine IPA performance for the same HMO product in the same geography and time frame.

"This study gives credence to the perspective that the power to achieve reduced utilization results from the underlying philosophy of patient management and is not the result of differences in PCP education or licensure," says Dr. Flynn. "As our nation faces the acute challenges of rapid escalation of health care costs, and with conventional strategies for clinical improvement and cost containment failing to achieve targeted goals, all stakeholders can look to this study for evidence of an integrative model's ability to deliver tangible results."