What is chronic care management?
It’s not unusual for people with more than one chronic illness to find themselves focusing on little more than managing their day-to-day symptoms. Chronic care management is designed to keep your primary care team fully engaged in managing your chronic illness and overall health by simplifying your care and providing intensive, personalized support.
Some of the chronic conditions that patients most often need help with include:
- Hypertension
- Diabetes
- High cholesterol
- Hypothyroidism
- Hyperlipidemia
- Vitamin D deficiency
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)
- Depression and anxiety
- Obesity
- Cancer
- Asthma
Chronic care management includes a comprehensive, individual care plan that takes every aspect of your health into account. It involves ongoing communication between you and your provider at Austin Square Medical Group, as well as oversight and coordination for all your medications, ancillary testing, and specialty coordination for referrals.
How does the service improve self-management?
The traditional medical model for people with one or more chronic diseases tended to emphasize the illness over the patient. This model addressed the patient’s symptoms while de-emphasizing the effects of certain lifestyle factors.
Successful self-management care includes:
- Discovering the benefits of a healthy diet
- Learning how regular exercise can alleviate your symptoms by improving your strength, flexibility, and endurance
- Discovering strategies for dealing with pain, frustration, fatigue, isolation, and stress
- Learning how to effectively communicate your needs to your family, friends, and physician
Because this method is often more expensive and less effective than the healthy lifestyle strategies patients can manage on their own, chronic care management is designed to teach you how to make beneficial lifestyle changes. Such changes can prevent further complications, improve your daily function, and help you manage your symptoms.
How can chronic care management benefit my health?
Just as certain lifestyle choices can contribute to the development of disease, managing your conditions carefully and adopting healthy habits can lessen their severity and keep them from progressing. Patients who have coordinated, ongoing care and who commit to making better choices for their health are more likely to:
- Report feeling better overall
- Experience less fatigue, shortness of breath, pain, stress, depression, and sleep problems
- See an improvement in their health-related quality of life
- Experience fewer sick days from either physical or mental issues
- Benefit from improved communication with health professionals
Chronic care management services can also help you save money by reducing necessary medications and helping you avoid costly emergency room visits and unnecessary hospitalizations.
If you need chronic care management, book an appointment online or over the phone with Austin Square Medical Group today.
