Clover collects tons of data about its patients, probably more than most health plans. They may only have 19,000 patients, but they also like to talk about how their data is very wide. Most health plans I've worked with do a terrible job of even collecting the simplest types of data and outsource a vast majority of their data collection processes. These health plans have aging technology and a reluctance to use new and open source tools. A great example of this is how many health plans manage to somehow overpay claims to the tune of 10-100s of millions of dollars per year, and have no idea why. There's an entire cottage industry devoted to solving this problem for insurers.
Most of the tests you mention above are wasteful for your typical Medicare Advantage enrollee. There's a ton of low hanging fruit for a start-up like Clover to make a meaningful impact. Trying to change human behavior through diet or exercise is incredibly difficult, especially for those from disadvantaged communities or of lower socioeconomic status. Kudos to Clover to trying to make a marginal impact on that front; most insurance plans wouldn't do anything.
> Most of the tests you mention above are wasteful for your typical Medicare Advantage enrollee.
A good point to discuss. Perhaps I'm overly optimistic about people in general, but how do we know, a priori to a data-centric healthcare model applied to a patient, about their participation? These tests are only wasteful in the context of the current care model, which stipulates that once you have Type 2, there is a lockstep progression of increasingly invasive and expensive medication and interventions, graduation to insulin injection, and culminating in early death from complications? In the face of that kind of prognosis, it is not at all surprising that any additional tests are considered futile by both medical practitioners and patients alike. But if the patient was offered via data-centric care a clearer window to their condition, amplified proactive participation in care management with negative feedback loops tamping down undesirable fluctuations, and in the case of Type 2 or metabolic syndrome the clear goal of reversion (though not a cure) and drastically improved eventual outcomes, why do we assume that even elderly patients on Medicare Advantage would not statistically respond well as a whole population? I dunno, this isn't my domain expertise, so I'm honestly asking these questions; if there is the equivalent of behavioral economics studying patient behavior, then perhaps that field has the answers I'm seeking.
> There's an entire cottage industry devoted to solving this problem for insurers.
I'd like nothing more than to see these efforts succeed, look forward to following the progress.
Most of the tests you mention above are wasteful for your typical Medicare Advantage enrollee. There's a ton of low hanging fruit for a start-up like Clover to make a meaningful impact. Trying to change human behavior through diet or exercise is incredibly difficult, especially for those from disadvantaged communities or of lower socioeconomic status. Kudos to Clover to trying to make a marginal impact on that front; most insurance plans wouldn't do anything.