From Center Ownership to Network Ownership

Control Diabetes Services was founded in Dallas, Texas in 1992 by Dr. William Fears, a local Endocrinologist. Dr. Fears still serves as our National Medical Advisor. There were two primary concerns to be addressed in the formulation of the company:

• With physicians' time ever being stretched tighter, there must be a resource for physicians with diabetes patients - a place where their patients can be comprehensively trained on their disease, with the physician still being involved, and the result equaling healthier patients.

• For managed care organizations to provide more value to their members, they must reduce costs and improve the quality of life for their patients. Education providers must provide valuable and measurable services on diabetic members to partnering managed care organizations.

The founders of Control Diabetes Services believed that both of these goals could be attained, and set out to become the leader in face-to-face diabetes self management.

The concept proved its worth. Physicians recognized the value of the service as an adjunct to their existing care. Managed care organizations experienced a reduction in hospitalizations, ER visits, lost work days and an increase in preventive measures by their patients. Both physicians and MCOs benefited from the increase in patient satisfaction and improved outcomes. Measured clinical outcomes supported the effectiveness of having Control Diabetes Services intervention as an integral part of diabetic patient care.

In 1994, Eli Lilly and Company acquired Control Diabetes Services. The acquisition was part of Lilly's corporate mission to enhance the level of care to diabetes patients and provide a valuable resource to physicians dedicated to diabetes care. Because of Lilly's desire to maintain unwavering product neutrality, the Control Diabetes Services headquarters is still located in Dallas, Texas to this day.

In an effort to duplicate this business model in other metropolitan areas, Lilly expanded the operation into 11 additional key geographic areas: Boston, Albany, Long Island, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Miami, Cincinnati, Ft. Worth, Phoenix, Houston, and Tyler, Texas. Lilly owned and successfully managed each of these centers for several years.

Understanding MCO needs led to extreme success in signing several regional MCO contracts. Our managed care partners were pleased with the service and stated that they needed three key areas of service: quality programs (which was satisfied), outcomes tracking (which was provided) and finally they desired multiple access points for their members - the patients.

It was determined that expansion was going to be expensive if Eli Lilly and Company continued to own each center across the country. Knowing that we had to provide better geographic access, the centers were sold (except the Dallas and Fort Worth centers which we use to this day as research and development sites) and we began subcontracting our education provider network to quality education providers across the country.

Over the next several years, Control Diabetes Services focused on building the diabetes education provider network, now known as Dia-Net®. Control Diabetes Services continues to expand Dia-Net® in areas where we contract with a large amount of managed care lives.