Medical home model more efficient for docs
If every American had a patient-centered medical home, healthcare costs would likely decrease by 5.6 percent, resulting in a national savings of $67 billion per year.
That’s according to the “Report on Financing the New Model of Family Medicine,” authored by Stephen J. Spann, MD, of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the Baylor College of Medicine.
In a patient-centered medical home model of care, or PCMH, primary care physicians partner with patients to understand their needs, manage their healthcare and facilitate care from other professionals. It emphasizes preventing disease, improving care of chronic conditions and behavioral health support education.
Spann claims that a new PCMH model of care, fully implemented within the current fee for service system of reimbursement, would result in a 26 percent increase in compensation (from $167,457 to $210,288 in total annual compensation) for prototypical family physicians who maintain their current number of work hours.
Or, Spann says, if family physicians adopted a PCMH model of care, they could choose to decrease their work hours by 12 percent and still maintain their current compensation.
The study recommends that a 24- to 36-month national PCMH demonstration project be launched, involving 10 to 20 family practices of varying sizes, locations and patient populations.
Statewide pilots in Arizona and New Jersey will launch in the spring.
The pilot program in New Jersey is a collaboration between Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey and the New Jersey Academy of Family Physicians. The year-long program will be implemented in 25-50 practices.
“The PCMH concept emphasizes the ‘high-touch’ nature of primary care that family physicians have traditionally provided to patients,” said Ray Saputelli, executive vice president of NJAFP.
In Arizona, the program will be open to UnitedHealthcare’s employer-sponsored Medicare Advantage and Medicaid health plan customers, including four to six primary-care practices from UnitedHealthcare’s network in Phoenix and Tucson.
