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Article
Why Dementia Is So Hard for Primary Care—and What Value-Based Leaders Can Do About It
In value-based care, we ask primary care providers to be quarterbacks—responsible for clinical outcomes, cost containment and patient experience. But when it comes to dementia, an important condition that by its nature can be a challenge to diagnose and difficult to manage, we’ve handed them the ball without a playbook.
This article explores the challenges primary care organizations face in managing dementia patients—and some of the solutions available for improving outcomes, lowering costs and reducing risk.
Article
Leveraging the Annual Wellness Visit to Detect Dementia in Your Patient Population
By John Mach, MD.
Many value-based practices emphasize the Medicare Annual Wellness Visit (AWV) to their patients. The AWV is a great opportunity to improve screening for dementia but it needs to include a specific, standardized screen. This article discusses why screening is so important and how leveraging technology can improve screening during the AWV.
Article
The Value of the Caregiver – Redefining Metrics in Dementia Care
Traditional metrics in dementia care have focused primarily on patient outcomes and clinical efficiencies. But many dementia patients are unable to self-manage their care, rendering traditional outcome measurements inaccurate. As the role of the unpaid/informal family caregiver, typically a spouse or adult child, becomes increasingly recognized as essential, it’s time to redefine our measurement systems. This article explores the importance of developing caregiver-centric metrics that accurately reflect the full spectrum of care.
Article
CMS is Prioritizing Dementia Care—Are ACOs Ready?
ACOs and at-risk providers that embrace GUIDE today will emerge as leaders tomorrow, as CMS accelerates its focus on dementia care. Beyond improving patient outcomes, the right GUIDE partner ensures that ACOs can effectively manage attribution, control medical expenses, and reduce preventable hospitalizations—protecting both their financial performance and their ability to deliver high-quality care.
ACOs should be thinking strategically about how they leverage the benefits of GUIDE on behalf of their dementia patients. While the program promises shared savings through fewer hospitalizations and ED visits, there are risks that a well-prepared partner can help you avoid.
Article
Doing Nothing is Not Free: ACOs and GUIDE
If you lead an accountable care organization (ACO), you’ve likely heard of CMS’s GUIDE (Guiding an Improved Dementia Experience) model. It’s an eight-year initiative designed to improve dementia care by integrating family caregivers into the care team. It is also a battle cry for better care. Ignore it at your own peril.
Article
Society of Actuaries: A GUIDE to CMS's New Dementia Model
Ceresti CEO Dirk Soenksen offers his insights into how the GUIDE model will affect dementia care in the U.S. for the Society of Actuaries publication, Long Term Care News.
Article
How to Lower the Cost of Your Top Cost Drivers
Dementia represents a large, unmanaged, high-cost subpopulation in Medicare risk contracts—and a unique opportunity for value-based organizations to improve outcomes and reduce costs. For health plans and providers in value-based care arrangements, outsourcing dementia care management is a rare win-win: it drives better care, lowers total cost of care, and fills a major gap in current CCM programs.
Press Release
Ceresti Partners with ASAAR Medical to Drive Scalable Change in Dementia Care
Ceresti Health (Ceresti), a CMS GUIDE participant and leader in tech-enabled dementia care, has partnered with Florida-based REACH ACO ASAAR Medical (ASAAR) to transform the delivery of dementia care and drive scalable impact across accountable care organization (ACO) performance by activating family caregivers as essential members of the care team.
“ASAAR is committed to delivering smarter care models that empower physicians and families alike,” said Anjan Patel, CEO of ASAAR Medical. “Ceresti’s solution and its alignment with the GUIDE model perfectly support our vision - a dementia care approach that is proactive, tech-enabled and tailored to how care actually happens: at home, with caregivers.”
Testimonials
Retired Truckdriver Finds Support on Her Dementia Caregiver Journey
Gladys and Dean took off for a four-week, 6,000-mile trip from Idaho to deliver an invaluable family Bible to Dean’s brother, John, in Buffalo. The retired truck drivers are no strangers to the road, but trips like these have gotten more challenging since Dean’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s in 2019. Gladys said her community and the education and support she continuously receives from her team at Ceresti Health has been helping the couple through the unexpected twists and turns that come with dementia care.