Coordinated care programs designed to keep Medicare beneficiaries out of the hospital and reduce costs mostly did not work, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the AP/Washington Times reports. CMS selected 15 proposals for coordinated care test-site programs in 2002, and 18,309 total fee-for-service Medicare beneficiaries were enrolled in the programs. Most of the beneficiaries had age-related chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease and lung disease, and many had more than one chronic condition. The programs were intended to keep costs down while reducing hospitalizations. However, only two of the sites met this goal. The AP/Times reports, "The disappointing results show how tough it is to manage older patients with chronic diseases, who often take multiple prescriptions, see many doctors and sometimes get conflicting medical advice."

Study author Randall Brown -- a researcher at Mathematica Policy Research, which was hired to analyze the programs -- wrote that the results were "underwhelming…