Patient Support

The United States healthcare expenditure overall is huge, approximately $6,683 for every man, woman, and child. Yet the industry has enormous challenges. It must support a growing number of chronically ill patients who are diagnosed and treated at a younger age. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), over 90 million Americans live with a chronic illness, and chronic diseases are linked to approximately 70 percent of all US deaths. Researchers believe that the U.S. will experience a 50 percent increase in the number of patients with chronic illness by 2040, placing significant stress on the health system.

This is particularly important in supporting the chronically ill population. Chronic care requires daily management, lifelong medications, lifestyle changes and monitoring for flare-ups. The drain on scarce healthcare resources is a struggle today, but may become overwhelming in the near future, given some forecasts showing a 50% increase in the number of chronically ill patients by 2040. Currently, the CDC estimates that over 75 percent of the nation's $1.4 trillion in healthcare expense goes toward the treatment of chronic illness. Approximately 105 million people in the U.S. today suffer from one or more chronic diseases.

Health plans and large employers are at the front lines of this health management issue, with chronically ill workers posing a significant financial challenge. As a result, both have turned to disease management companies whose key objective is to educate patients about their conditions so that they may be able to be more proactive about their treatment and care. As patients become more capable of "self-management," they make more prudent healthcare decisions, leading to less costly and more effective treatment plans.

MedWellness adherence programs provide an effective vehicle for disseminating consistent information about disease symptoms, medications, and treatment regimens, assisting health management systems in their goal of providing better information to patients and healthcare professionals.