Stability Health is Different from Companies Profiled in Peterson Diabetes Assessment

Why Stability Health’s Approach to Diabetes Care is Different

A lot of our clients have been asking us about the recent Peterson Health Technology Institute’s (PHTI) Digital Diabetes Management Solutions Assessment. There is concern because of the report’s conclusion: digital diabetes management solutions do not deliver meaningful, clinical benefits.

We commend PHTI for putting in the time, energy and effort to evaluate digital health options for diabetes. It is a chronic condition that affects an increasing number of people in the United States, where outcomes haven’t changed in decades, and where innovation holds a lot of promise.

Stability Health is different from the companies that were evaluated in the report.

Our patients start with higher A1C levels and at least one co-morbidity, and we achieve A1C reductions over 1 point.
Stability Health’s patients are not similar to those studied in the report. Our patients have an average starting A1C above 9%, and suffer from co-morbidities that complicate their condition, making delivery of their care more challenging. In fact, our patients are more like the patients that PHTI’s literature review suggests would most benefit from a digital health solution.

Over 60% of our patients who have an A1C above 9 have been able to lower it below 9 in as little as 6 months. Our team includes certified health coaches, registered dieticians, certified diabetes and care education specialists as well as expert diabetes clinicians. This team supports the most challenging patients between medical appointments and offers their primary care teams just-in-time specialist recommendations. It is because of our team and the expertise we bring that healthcare organizations seek our assistance with this sub-group of their diabetes population. And why we show outcomes in this difficult subset of their diabetes population.

While we have technology, we use it to scale our program. Unlike the companies profiled in the PHTI report, we do not require patients to interact with an app, have a certain device, or even have any technology … other than a landline.

We serve diverse patients and do not use a “one size fits all” approach.
In its report, PHTI cited Virta Health’s approach as more effective than other digital platforms that it evaluated. Virta encourages patients to go on the ketogenic diet, an extremely low-carb, high-fat diet that helps with weight loss and has shown to lead to diabetes remission. However, the PHTI report questioned whether the ketogenic diet would be achievable and generalizable to all populations of people with diabetes, in particular those in lower socioeconomic demographics, or non-Caucasian populations.

We are pleased to share that Stability Health works with clients who serve diverse populations, and we have successfully treated them. We’ve achieved an A1C reduction of 1.8 in patients who have been in our program for one year. And we’ve been able to do this without putting patients on extreme diets, like the keto diet. In fact, through culturally appropriate nutritional guidance, we’ve been able to help numerous patients lower their A1C levels without increasing medications; and in many cases, we have helped patients and their care teams safely reduce medications including insulin.

We save provider organizations $3K/year savings per patient; most clients see a 3x ROI on Stability Health’s services.
The PHTI report claims that digital solutions “increase healthcare spending relative to usual care.” The economic analysis that PHTI conducted was based on billing Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for Remote Patient Monitoring and that cost was compared to savings gained from modest A1C reductions. It cited the “cost” of digital technology to be what can be extracted by billing, which ranges from $809-$1155/year from Medicare. Because its analysis uses this as the “cost” and then models cost of care reductions on small reductions of A1C, it is not surprising that there is no ROI.

Stability Health has a different business model. Our fees are priced lower than the solutions profiled in PHTI, and we help clients who have value-based care arrangements save on the segment of diabetes population that incurs the highest costs. With the clinical results we achieve in lowering A1C by over 1 point, we can save our client organizations on average $3000/year per patient. It’s why independent physician groups and urban academic centers continue to work with us.

Conclusion
The PHTI report includes “the best case performance [is] when digital diabetes management solutions are linked with highly integrated delivery models.” And that’s what Stability Health does. We partner directly with healthcare organizations to support the most challenging diabetes patients between visits, and their clinical care teams with expert specialist recommendations. Our dual support model is what drives our outcomes – outcomes that are meaningful to patients and represent real improvement in their health.

If you’d like to learn more about our unique approach or effective services, please contact us at peggy.chou@stabilityhealth.com