Siloed care and duplicated costs mean we’re failing people with multiple chronic conditions. Clinically guided lifestyle-first care is the answer.
More than half of adults in the United States have multiple chronic conditions (MCC), including cardiometabolic conditions like diabetes, chronic kidney disease (CKD), and cardiovascular disease. Collectively, these conditions account for an estimated $100 billion annually in avoidable healthcare spending.
Mark Clermont
CEO, Cecelia Health
A major contributing factor to those costs is that MCCs are treated separately, but often overlap. “The healthcare ecosystem has grown up in silos that rarely, if ever, talk to each other,” noted Mark Clermont, CEO of Cecelia Health, a nationally licensed virtual specialty medical practice supporting people with chronic conditions.
Not one size
This siloed approach is inherently inefficient. Treatments are duplicated, patient adherence to medication and therapies lapses, and day-to-day life creates barriers to care.
“The whole environment is one-size-fits-all, and in no way are people one-size-fits-all,” Clermont noted. “For example, in diabetes, obesity, and CKD, the most common overlap is nutrition — they share a need for a registered dietitian to work in a very personalized way. But if you do that only in one condition, then you’re not actually treating the whole person. When you have these kinds of inefficiencies in care, that will inevitably lead to higher costs.”
Another way of looking at the problem can be seen in the recent proliferation of GLP-1 medications. “A patient who has a GLP-1 prescription strictly for weight loss, maybe they have pre-diabetes,” Clermont explained. “Maybe they are one of 33 million U.S. adults who have undiagnosed CKD. If that prescription is written only for weight management, then you’re missing two-thirds of that patient’s challenges.”
Lifestyle-first, clinically guided
Clermont believes Cecelia Health’s “lifestyle-first, clinically guided” virtual care, leveraging its national network of licensed clinicians and specialty providers, is the solution.
“We have the entirety of a patient’s care navigation — informed not just by what they’re doing at home, but also by coordination within a medical practice itself,” he explained. “We provide clinical support and education, device support, biometric monitoring, labs and medication management, intensive nutrition counseling, lifestyle and behavior interventions. The goal is to build a collaborative care plan, working with external providers, so that we’re all in this together.”
Working with Cecelia Health enables some level of either video, telephonic, or digital access to a clinician. “That kind of connectedness is something most patients have never seen before, helping them stay accountable and engaged,” Clermont noted. “If you fast forward almost a year later from the first touch point with a patient, 83% of them are still with us, showing up at least every 30 days.”
Clermont is proud of what Cecelia Health is doing. “When you have coordinated virtual care with this lifestyle-driven clinical oversight, you empower patients and see reduced overall costs through lower utilization and improved clinical outcomes. We’re seeing that every day, with up to 16% annual medical cost savings and 26% Rx cost savings.”
To learn more about Cecelia Health and virtual integrated care, visit ceceliahealth.com
