“For the first time I am now positive about my future living with HIV.”
– Chattanooga Cares patient Charlie
“Curant Health’s Care Management program was instrumental in our successful achievement of a key CQI HIV outcome for our clinic. The Curant pharmacists provide diligent, caring support for some of our most challenging patients, and our overall HIV-adherence rate has surpassed 90% for the first time ever.”
– Shannon Stephenson, CEO, Chattanooga Cares
Curant Health has partnered with Chattanooga Cares to offer our Care Management program, a team-based, patient-centered approach to assist patients and their support systems in managing chronic medical conditions more effectively, to a selected set of non-adherent HIV-positive patients.
One of the first patients referred to us in July 2017 was Charlie. Charlie was an exact fit for our care management program patient profile – he hadn’t been into the clinic or on HIV medication since November 2016. Despite repeated phone calls to the patient to come into the clinic for a checkup and to pick up his medication refill, the clinic staff was unable to speak to Charlie or to get him through the clinic doors.
When we first reached Charlie, he was struggling with his HIV diagnosis and upfront in admitting that he didn’t like taking his medication because it reminded him of the disease. However, without going into the clinic for a scheduled office visit, Charlie was not able to pick up his medication refills and his HIV remained untreated.
In early September our clinical pharmacist checked back with Charlie and learned he’d missed a week of his medication therapy. Charlie also needed a prescription refill. He’d missed his last scheduled appointment at the clinic and said he was having difficulty scheduling a new appointment. Importantly, he also shared that he had just started a new job and it was difficult for him to get to the clinic after his work shift ended.
Once again, without going into the clinic, Charlie was unable to get his medications refilled.
On December’s call with the Charlie, our clinical pharmacist shared Charlie’s lab results with him, explained to him what the results meant and congratulated him on the great progress he’d made.
Care Management Services for Chattanooga Cares
Curant Health has partnered with Chattanooga Cares to offer Care Management, a highly coordinated program of clinical services, healthcare provider services and reporting & analytics. At Chattanooga Cares we are focused on a selected set of Insurance Assistance Program (IAP) HIV patients known to have significant challenges with medication adherence.
Partnership goals include achieving and maintaining viral suppression for patients enrolled in our Care Management program, as well as a Continuous Process improvement (CQI) outcome of >90% adherence in their larger adherence program population, a group that includes patients who are newly diagnosed, those who are reestablishing care, transition of care patients and those enrolled in Care Management with Curant.