The Patient-Centered Primary Care Collaborative and Milbank Memorial Fund published a report this month on the effect patient-centered medical homes have on cost and quality. The report reveals more patient-centered medical home initiatives are seeing positive outcomes.
Authors of the report examined the findings of studies published last year on 30 primary care patient-centered medical home initiatives around the country that tracked cost and medical service utilization. For the first time, the annual report included three formal evaluations of federal patient-centered medical home initiatives.
Examining the 30 studies, the authors revealed:
1. Twenty-one of the 23 studies that tracked costs demonstrated reductions in one or more financial category.
2. Twenty-three of the 25 studies that reported on utilization demonstrated reductions in one or more utilization category, including emergency department visits, inpatient hospitalizations and hospital readmissions.
3. More mature medical home initiatives were associated with stronger improvements in both costs and utilization.
"As CMS defines [the patient-centered medical home] and supports it through value-based purchasing arrangements, the medical home will be scaled and spread," concluded the report. "Accordingly, it is critical to unify patients or consumers (including families and caregivers), healthcare providers and payers around the value of advanced primary care and PCMH."
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