Outpatient geriatric evaluation and management: Is there an investment effect?

The effectiveness and efficiency of outpatient geriatric evaluation and management (GEM) was compared to usual outpatient primary care (UPC). Although GEM had nea overall impact on health care utilization or cost of care for the entire study period, significant reductions were found during the sixteen- to twenty-four-month study period, suggesting a possible investment effect, In the first eight months of the study, GEM patients incurred 34.8% more in health care costs than UPC patients, hut in the final eight months of the study the cost of care far UPC patients exceeded that for CEM patients by 37.8%.