TY - JOUR
AU - A. Mahmud
AU - M. C. Brown
AU - C. C. Lewis
AU - I. J. Ornelas
AU - R. Pardee
AU - S. Mun
AU - A. Piccorelli
AU - E. O. Westbrook
AU - H. D. Haan
AU - E. S. Wong
A1 - 
AB - INTRODUCTION: More health systems are implementing strategies to understand and address patient social health, also known as social health integration. We examine the impact of a pilot social health integration program in two primary care clinics in an integrated health care system on health care costs. METHODS: We randomized 534 patients who reported any social need between October 2022 - January 2023 to receive support from a centralized Connections Call Center (CCC) or clinic-based Community Resource Specialists (CRS). We used administrative and claims data to compare costs between programs incurred by the health care system over 9 months. Using an intent-to-treat approach, we used two-part models to estimate costs for behavioral health, emergency department, inpatient admissions, and urgent care. We estimated single-part models using generalized linear models for primary care, specialty care, and total costs. Our secondary as-treated analyses compared costs among those who received support from CRS to those who did not. RESULTS: Unadjusted results showed no significant differences between CRS and CCC participants. Adjusted findings showed that CRS participants had $286 higher primary care costs than CCC participants (95% CI: $63.61, $508.89). As-treated findings showed that those who received CRS assistance had $2,356 more specialty care costs (95% CI: $229, $4,482) than those who did not. CONCLUSIONS: Observed changes in primary and specialty care costs may be a result of increasing engagement with the health system that could support patients in managing their health and prevent avoidable utilization in the long-term. These findings can help inform others who are interested in adopting similar primary care interventions.
AD - Department of Health Systems and Population Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA. amahmud@uw.edu.; Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA. amahmud@uw.edu.; Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute, Seattle, WA, USA.; Department of Epidemiology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.; Department of Health Systems and Population Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.; Veterans Affairs Puget Sound Health Care System, Seattle, WA, USA.
AN - 41029347
BT - BMC Health Serv Res
C5 - Financing & Sustainability; Education & Workforce
CP - 1
DA - Sep 30
DO - 10.1186/s12913-025-13303-6
DP - NLM
ET - 20250930
IS - 1
JF - BMC Health Serv Res
LA - eng
N2 - INTRODUCTION: More health systems are implementing strategies to understand and address patient social health, also known as social health integration. We examine the impact of a pilot social health integration program in two primary care clinics in an integrated health care system on health care costs. METHODS: We randomized 534 patients who reported any social need between October 2022 - January 2023 to receive support from a centralized Connections Call Center (CCC) or clinic-based Community Resource Specialists (CRS). We used administrative and claims data to compare costs between programs incurred by the health care system over 9 months. Using an intent-to-treat approach, we used two-part models to estimate costs for behavioral health, emergency department, inpatient admissions, and urgent care. We estimated single-part models using generalized linear models for primary care, specialty care, and total costs. Our secondary as-treated analyses compared costs among those who received support from CRS to those who did not. RESULTS: Unadjusted results showed no significant differences between CRS and CCC participants. Adjusted findings showed that CRS participants had $286 higher primary care costs than CCC participants (95% CI: $63.61, $508.89). As-treated findings showed that those who received CRS assistance had $2,356 more specialty care costs (95% CI: $229, $4,482) than those who did not. CONCLUSIONS: Observed changes in primary and specialty care costs may be a result of increasing engagement with the health system that could support patients in managing their health and prevent avoidable utilization in the long-term. These findings can help inform others who are interested in adopting similar primary care interventions.
PY - 2025
SN - 1472-6963
SP - 1244
ST - Differences in health care costs between two social health support programs: findings from a randomized social health integration pilot program
T1 - Differences in health care costs between two social health support programs: findings from a randomized social health integration pilot program
T2 - BMC Health Serv Res
TI - Differences in health care costs between two social health support programs: findings from a randomized social health integration pilot program
U1 - Financing & Sustainability; Education & Workforce
U3 - 10.1186/s12913-025-13303-6
VL - 25
VO - 1472-6963
Y1 - 2025
ER -