The weeks of Christmas and New Year’s present a significant, high-risk period for patients managing chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and cardiovascular disease. Routine health management often collapses under the weight of travel, dietary changes, increased emotional stress, and reduced access to standard clinical staff due to holiday closures.
For healthcare providers, this period often correlates with a spike in emergency room visits and unnecessary hospital readmissions—all of which negatively impact patient outcomes, quality metrics, and organizational revenue.
At Access-Salud, our Care Mavnagement and Clinical Navigation services are designed to stabilize patient care during these vulnerable windows. Here are five crucial strategies your organization must implement proactively to prevent patient relapse during the year-end disruption.
1. Proactive Medication Adherence Checks
The number one risk factor during the holidays is missed medication. Travel, forgetfulness, and pharmacy closures can lead to dangerous gaps in treatment.
- The Strategy: Implement a mandatory, automated contact system focused solely on refills.
- Action: Ensure your care coordination team (or our outsourced Care Management specialists) contacts every high-risk patient before December 15th to confirm they have sufficient medication to last through January 5th, including any necessary travel authorizations or mail-order coordination.
2. Nutritional Disruption & Stress Management Guidance
The seasonal shift toward richer foods and high-stress environments (family gatherings, travel logistics) directly impacts blood pressure and glucose levels. Simply telling a patient to “eat less” is not effective.
- The Strategy: Provide empathetic, realistic moderation counseling.
- Action: Equip Clinical Navigators with scripts to discuss realistic coping mechanisms. Focus on hydration, managing portion sizes of high-carb foods, and identifying stress triggers. The goal is to avoid compensatory behaviors (like skipping meals) that lead to instability.
3. Maintaining Connectivity Through Telehealth Navigation
With limited in-office hours and traveling physicians, patients must have a fail-safe method to access advice without resorting to the ER.
- The Strategy: Leverage telehealth access as a primary holiday safety net.
- Action: Ensure every chronic care patient has tested their Telehealth Navigation setup (login, camera, connection) and has a clear point-of-contact for non-emergency questions. Our navigation teams facilitate this pre-holiday testing, minimizing access barriers when clinical staff are scarce.
4. Discharge Planning Review Before the Break
If a chronic patient experienced a recent hospitalization (within the last 30-90 days), the holiday period is an especially precarious time for readmission.
- The Strategy: Reinforce continuity of care before the disruption.
- Action: Review the discharge plan and follow-up schedule (TOC) for every recent high-risk patient. Confirm appointments are scheduled for the first week of January and ensure the patient understands their warning signs. Our Administrative Back Office supports this by confirming all specialist referrals are processed and scheduled before the New Year holiday.
5. The Administrative Safety Net: Ensure Consistent Follow-Up
The biggest threat to chronic disease stability during the holidays is the assumption that in-house staff, distracted by vacation and year-end administrative tasks, have the bandwidth to perform high-touch patient follow-up.
By partnering with Access-Salud, you gain an administrative safety net. Our Care Management services ensure that proactive calls, medication adherence checks, and patient communication protocols are executed reliably and consistently, guaranteeing your patients are supported even when your clinical offices are running on skeleton crews.
The health of your chronic patient population shouldn’t depend on the holiday schedule. Partner with us to ensure consistent, high-touch, preventive care that stabilizes outcomes and protects your revenue cycle.
Is your care coordination team struggling to cover high-risk patients during the holidays? Schedule a free consultation with Access-Salud to learn how our Care Management services stabilize outcomes and reduce readmission risks.
