Disease management programs: benchmarking costs, savings, ROI.

Consumer and employer demands, financial pressures, and accreditation requirements have propelled disease management into its own fledgling industry, but there is still no one-stop shop for information, at least not for free. Experts suggest using a disease management vendor's guaranteed savings, not the fee per patient, as a benchmark. Middle- to high-priced vendors are generally the most cost-effective. Factors that affect costs include your patient mix, the amount of risk you want the vendor to assume, and how many bells and whistles you want in your program.