Diabetes treatment and education nonprofit Blue Circle Health is now working in Massachusetts in hopes of demonstrating that value-based care can save money in the long run.
The organization is led by Leonard D’Avolio, and assistant professor at Harvard Medical School and Mass General Brigham. His aim is to change what type 1 diabetes healthcare looks like by creating a framework for better care.
“Type 1 Diabetes is the poster child for how terrible the design of our healthcare system is,” D’Avolio said.
The nonprofit launched in Florida in 2024, and has now expanded to 20 states plus D.C. — including, recently, Massachusetts. Blue Circle Health is funded by the Helmsley Charitable Trust, which allows it to provide care to patients with no charge to them. The organization has a $15 million per year operating budget from the trust, according to D’Avolio.
The purpose of the nonprofit is to “de-risk value-based care,” D’Avolio said. “You need to build the care you think should exist.”
At Blue Circle, that means a six-month, completely virtual program that provides supplies, insurance navigation, and community support to enrolled patients.
The care team includes certified diabetes educators, insurance specialists, social workers, nurses and physicians. So far, Blue Circle has seen 1,000 patients and has capacity for 1,600, D’Avolio said. The goal is to serve patients across the entire Eastern and Central time zones, he said.
Being virtual allows for growth, as well as to ensure access for patients who live in remote areas without access to endocrinologists and other care providers who help manage the disease.
“Everything about the program is designed to equip, educate and empower people to thrive with this lifelong disease that you can only survive if you self-manage,” D’Avolio said.
With Blue Circle, the intention is to demonstrate what’s possible when patient outcomes are the only concern, and the current financial protocol of the healthcare system is removed. D’Avolio said the Blue Circle model could eventually be scaled to create cost savings by keeping patients out of hospitals and better able to manage their own condition.
With scale, D’Avolio said that Blue Circle could spend roughly $4,000 per patient. That’s far less than the average health plan, he said, which spends $19,000 per year per patient with diabetes. He hopes to show that the Blue Circle value-based model will show that patients will spend less over time when getting proactive, wraparound care.
This article first appeared in the Boston Business Journal.
