Residents in Brisbane's northern suburbs will be the first to benefit from a groundbreaking partnership between Australia's largest health insurer Medibank Private and Australia's largest Division of General Practice, GPpartners.
The aim: helping chronically ill people stay healthy and out of hospital.
The innovative program will provide case management services for nearly 500 Medibank Private members who suffer from multiple chronic conditions like diabetes, heart disease and respiratory conditions.
The objective is for participants to achieve and sustain improved health status and quality of life via care plans developed by their GP and through the utilisation of community based care rather than repeated visits to acute care hospitals.
Under the program, service co-ordinators will be employed to assist the patient's GP, practice nurse and other health care and community service providers. Patients are supported through face-to-face case management, regular phone follow-ups and social support.
Medibank Private Group Manager of Health Services, Julie Andrews, says Medibank Private's involvement in the program is another sign of it's commitment to helping members manage and improve their health, especially members with chronic conditions.
"This program fits well with Medibank Private's existing 'on-track' diabetes and 'on-call' chronic disease health management programs," she said.
"Working with GPpartners is an opportunity for us to support the fundamental role of the GP in the management of chronic disease.
"With the recent reforms to private health insurance enabling Medibank Private to invest in health management we see a strong future for this type of arrangement. It's good for members, it's good for doctors and it's good for Medibank - everybody wins," she said.
With their extensive experience in team care coordination involving thousands of participants in the Brisbane North area GPpartners are well equipped to take on the health management function.
Indeed the results speak for themselves. Research based on 11 years of GPpartners care coordination trials demonstrate that patients experience 19% fewer hospitalisations in the first 12 months on average and reported significantly better health status than those patients who were not supported by care coordinators.
ENDS
For further information please contact:
James Connors - Medibank Private
T. (03) 8622 5163 or 0433 992 677 / E: james_connors@medibank.com.au