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Patients With Lower Activation Associated With Higher Costs; Delivery Systems Should Know Their Patients’ ‘Scores’

Jessica Greene, Judith H. Hibbard, Valerie Overton

Health Affairs Journal

Patient activation is a term that describes the skills and confidence that equip patients to become actively engaged in their health care. Health care delivery systems are turning to patient activation as yet another tool to help them and their patients improve outcomes and influence costs. In this article we examine the relationship between patient activation levels and billed care costs. In an analysis of 33,163 patients of Fairview Health Services, a large health care delivery system in Minnesota, we found that patients with the lowest activation levels had predicted average costs that were 8 percent higher in the base year and 21 percent higher in the first half of the next year than the costs of patients with the highest activation levels, both significant differences. What’s more, patient activation was a significant predictor of cost even after adjustment for a commonly used “risk score” specifically designed to predict future costs. As health care delivery systems move toward assuming greater accountability for costs and outcomes for defined patient populations, knowing patients’ ability and willingness to manage their health will be a relevant piece of information integral to health care providers’ ability to improve outcomes and lower costs.

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Refund Policy

Rental orders with HealthHub Patient Engagement Solutions are refundable within the following guidelines:

  • Days that have been paid for (paid days1 ), but cannot be used due to a service interruption3 caused by a qualified technical issue4 may be refunded at the daily rate.

  • A day is considered used 2 hours after rental start time. Rental start time is defined by the rental order.

  • Any free days2 of rental included in a multi-day rental package cannot be exchanged for money or transferred to another patient.

  • If a refund is processed before all paid days are used, any free days are forfeited.

  • Refunds are processed from the time they are requested, and will not be backdated.

  • Once a service interruption is reported, paid days will be either refunded or added to the rental period (the choice is up to the patient). Free days will be added to the rental period, and cannot be refunded or exchanged for money.

Definitions

1 Paid days = Days of service paid for with your chosen service package. All paid days must be used before the free days in a package begin. There is 1 paid day in the daily package, 5 paid days in the weekly package and 15 paid days in the monthly package. (Please note: some sites may have different rental packages).

2 Free days = Days of service that were gifted to you by HealthHub with your chosen service package. The weekly package includes 2 free days (5 paid days, 2 free days) the monthly includes 15 free days (15 paid days, 15 free days). (Please note: some sites may have different rental packages).

3 Service interruption = Service use disrupted due to a qualified technical issue, or due to being moved to a new room with a missing or damaged HealthHub terminal. (Please note: this policy applies to service delivery problems for which HealthHub is responsible; it does not apply to those for which the hospital is responsible).

4 Qualified technical issue = A technical problem that impacts service delivery or enjoyment of services on your device.

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