Talking with Payers, Providers and Patients About Diabetes:
An AAPPO Toolkit for PPOs

Tab 12: Talking with Patients: Self Management and the Care Team

Diabetes self management is the technical term for helping patients take care of their own health more effectively. Self management education and support are an important component of a care plan for people with diabetes. People with diabetes need knowledge and skills necessary to make choices about their diseases so that they can self direct their care, adopt needed lifestyle changes, and ultimately control their health. Self management is a learned process that can and should be guided by multiple members of the diabetes care team: physicians and other clinicians, educators, and care managers. Written tools and information can help patients to track needed services, interact more effectively with providers and understand the steps needed to care for diabetes.

Resources for patients:

NIDDK “Your Guide to Diabetes Type 1 and Type 2”
http://diabetes.niddk.nih.gov/dm/pubs/
type1and2/YourGuide2Diabetes.pdf

American College of Clinical Endocrinologists Diabetes - Passport for Patients
http://www.aace.com/documents/pdf/DiabetesPassport.pdf\

Other examples are at:

CVS/Caremark “Pocket Checklist for Doctor Visits”
http://healthresources.caremark.com/topic/diabetesdr

American Association of Diabetes Educators: Side by Side: a Partner Approach to Self Care http://mydiabetespartner.org/index.php

National Patient Safety Foundation
Ask Me 3: Good Questions for Your Good Health (general health education)
http://www.npsf.org/askme3/pdfs/AskMe_brochure_8-pg_printer%20quality.pdf

Points to make for patients:

• The American Association of Diabetes Educators identifies seven behaviors that will help patients successfully manage diabetes: healthy eating, being active, monitoring, taking medication, problem solving, reducing risks and healthy coping. These are the focus of diabetes education.

• The ADA recommends that people with diabetes receive self management education as outlined in the national Standards of Care and that this be a covered benefit. Diabetes self management education should be provided at the time of diagnosis and as needed thereafter.

• The ADA recommends assessing a patient’s self management skills and knowledge of diabetes at least annually. See Tab 9 for physician tools to assess patient self management education skills.

• Effective self management education improves outcomes and in certain situations reduces costs. Patients may need coaching on how to interact effectively with physicians and other health professionals, and also benefit from written tools or electronic records to track their health information.