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Optimizing the Clinician-Patient Relationship
Panelists discuss how effective provider-patient communication about weight requires opening conversations with empathy and collaboration, using phrases like "I'm concerned about your weight" and avoiding stigmatizing language while understanding patient motivations and readiness for change.
EP: 1.Hormonal Adaptations in Type 2 Diabetes and Obesity
EP: 2.Importance of Clinical Trials and Guideline Recommendations
EP: 3.Barriers Associated with Guideline-Directed Care
EP: 4.The Role of Weight Management and Glycemic Control in the Management of Type 2 Diabetes
EP: 5.Improving Patient Outcomes Beyond Glycemic Control
EP: 6.Taking a Cardiometabolic Health Approach in Patients with Type 2 Diabetes
EP: 7.Seamless Management Between Primary Care Providers and Specialists
EP: 8.Supporting Patients and Primary Care Providers
EP: 9.Optimizing the Clinician-Patient Relationship
EP: 10.Overcoming Weight Bias in Clinical Practice
EP: 11.Creating a Positive Culture Around Weight Discussions
EP: 12.Leveraging Registries and Data Analytics
EP: 13.Structured Care Pathways and Predictive Modeling
EP: 14.Additional Clinical Considerations for the Management of Obesity
Primary Care Engagement Strategies
Engaging primary care providers requires supportive rather than punitive approaches, recognizing that all PCPs want to provide high-quality care to their patients. Effective strategies include gentle persuasion and nudging through peer comparison data, showing providers how their prescribing patterns compare to colleagues. Educational events and programs like the Echo Program bring primary care physicians together with specialists to discuss challenging cases, providing valuable peer-to-peer learning opportunities.
The reality of primary care practice includes the "27-hour day" challenge, where managing all guideline-directed care for a panel of 2500 patients would require 27 hours daily. This impossible workload explains primary care physician burnout and the declining number of physicians entering the field. Creative solutions must evolve primary care into team-based approaches that distribute tasks among various healthcare professionals.
Patient empowerment strategies also prove effective, such as waiting room signs encouraging patients to ask about their conditions, which can initiate important clinical discussions. The combination of provider education, peer support, systematic process improvements, and patient activation creates multiple pathways for improving diabetes and obesity care. Success requires moving beyond passive approaches like quality measures toward active engagement and support mechanisms.
Integrated Care for Chronic Conditions: A Randomized Care Management Trial
December 3rd 2025The authors sought to understand the differential impact of payer-led community-based care management approaches on stakeholder-oriented outcomes for publicly insured adults with multiple chronic conditions.
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Managed Care Reflections: A Q&A With A. Mark Fendrick, MD, and Michael E. Chernew, PhD
December 2nd 2025To mark the 30th anniversary of The American Journal of Managed Care (AJMC), each issue in 2025 includes a special feature: reflections from a thought leader on what has changed—and what has not—over the past 3 decades and what’s next for managed care. The December issue features a conversation with AJMC Co–Editors in Chief A. Mark Fendrick, MD, director of the Center for Value-Based Insurance Design and a professor at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; and Michael E. Chernew, PhD, the Leonard D. Schaeffer Professor of Health Care Policy and the director of the Healthcare Markets and Regulation Lab at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts.
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