Cost and Effects of Performance Feedback and Nurse Case Management for Medicare Beneficiaries with Diabetes: A Randomized Controlled Trial

Nurse case management has been shown to improve the quality of diabetes care in closed model health maintenance organizations and Veterans Affairs medical clinics. A randomized controlled trial of a similar intervention within HealthTexas Provider Network, a fee-for-service primary care network in North Texas, demonstrated no benefit in processes of care or clinical outcomes for Medicare diabetes patients. To investigate whether the case management model impacted the cost of diabetes care from the Medicare perspective, we compared the average payments and charges incurred between intervention arms: claims-based audit and feedback; claims- and medical-record-based audit and feedback; and claims- and medical-record-based audit and feedback plus a practice-based diabetes resource nurse. Following adjustment for baseline differences between groups, no significant differences were observed. Thus, within this setting, it appears the nurse case management model produced no improvement in either clinical quality or in costs associated with diabetes from a Medicare perspective.