E-Consult COST EFFECTIVENESS
“Reduced Cost Of Specialty Care Using Electronic Consultations For Medicaid Patients” Health Affairs, December 2018
A retrospective analysis of e-consult’s economic impact demonstrates that e-consult delivers both improved specialty care access as well as cost savings for the safety net. The research setting of Connecticut-based multi-site FQHC, Community Health Center Inc. (CHC), delivers care to 100,000 patients, 70% of whom are covered by Medicaid. Researchers analyzed e-consults and face-to-face referral data for dermatology, endocrinology, gastroenterology, and orthopedics between July 2014 and June 2016. The analysis revealed that e-consult’s adoption generated an average of $84 PPPM savings for specialty-related episode-of-care costs and delivered annualized Medicaid savings of $578,592.
“Sustainability of a Primary Care-Driven eConsult Service” Annals of Family Medicine, March/April 2018
“A Cost-Effectiveness Analysis of Cardiology eConsults for Medicaid Patients”American Journal of Managed Care, January 2018
A review of a randomized trial of e-consults for cardiac patients conducted by Connecticut’s Community Health Center (CHC)reveals a lowering of costs. The study includes 369 Medicaid patients who were referred for cardiology consults. Six months after the consults, which were randomly assigned as e-consults or face-to-face referrals, mean unadjusted total costs for the e-consult patient group were $655 lower than patients in the face-to-face arm of the study. In addition, costs for outpatient cardiac procedures were $81 lower for patients in the e-consult arm. The study concludes that e-consults impact total cost savings because they reduce the cost of cardiac outpatient procedures.