• Paul A Scuffham, Joshua M Byrnes, Christine Pollicino, David Cross, Stan Goldstein, and Shu-Kay Ng.
• Centre for Applied Health Economics, Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, Brisbane, Australia. p.scuffham@griffith.edu.au.
• J Gen Intern Med. 2019 Jan 1; 34 (1): 41-48.

BackgroundDisease management programmes may improve quality of care, improve health outcomes and potentially reduce total healthcare costs. To date, only one very large population-based study has been undertaken and indicated reductions in hospital admissions > 10%.ObjectiveWe sought to confirm the effectiveness of population-based disease management programmes. The objective of this study was to evaluate the relative impact on healthcare utilisation and cost of participants the Costs to Australian Private Insurance - Coaching Health (CAPICHe) trial.DesignParallel-group randomised controlled trial, intention-to-treat analysis SETTING: Australian population PARTICIPANTS: Forty-four thousand four hundred eighteen individuals (18-90 years of age) with private health insurance and diagnosis of heart failure, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), coronary artery disease (CAD), diabetes, or low back pain, with predicted high cost claims for the following 12 months.InterventionHealth coaching for disease management from Bupa Health Dialog, vs Usual Care.Main Outcome MeasuresTotal cost of claims per member to the private health insurer 1 year post-randomisation for hospital admissions, including same-day, medical and prostheses hospital claims, excluding any maternity costs. Analysis was based on the intent-to-treat population.ResultsEstimated total cost 1 year post-randomisation was not significantly different (means: intervention group A$4934; 95% CI A$4823-A$5045 vs control group A$4868; 95% CI A$4680-A$5058; p = 0.524). However, the intervention group had significantly lower same-day admission costs (A$468; 95% CI A$454-A$482 vs A$508; 95% CI A$484-A$533; p = 0.002) and fewer same-day admissions per 1000 person-years (intervention group, 530; 95% CI 508-552 vs control group, 614; 95% CI 571-657; p = 0.002). Subgroup analyses indicated that the intervention group had significantly fewer admissions for patients with COPD and fewer same-day admissions for patients with diabetes.ConclusionsChronic disease health coaching was not effective to reduce the total cost after 12 months of follow-up for higher risk individuals with a chronic condition. Statistically significant changes were found with fewer same-day admissions; however, these did not translate into cost savings from a private health insurance perspective.

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