Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) Recognition Brings Several Benefits to Practices
The role played by federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) is crucial in the primary care safety grid. Millions of patients, most of whom are uninsured or have Medicaid, are being saved by FQHCs partially supported by federal funding.
Researchers related to commonwealth fund attempted to identify critical tactics that may be used by health centers for transforming into patient-centered medical homes (PCMHs) due to their unique financing, patient population, and payer mix. PCMH adoption model that focuses on providing high quality, coordinated care helps improve patient experiences while lowering costs by bringing down unnecessary emergency department visits and hospitalizations.
During the year 2007, the Joint Principles of the Patient-Centered Medical Home was developed by four members of the leading primary care-based healthcare professional societies. It outlined the PCMH model characteristics that are given below:
Improved reimbursement support : Payers- state, federal, and commercial, offer greater support and incentive programs to the practices having PCMH recognition.
Additional recognition : PCMH accreditation is indicative of high- quality care and enhanced services to the patients.
Reduced practice costs and enhanced efficiency : PCMH guidelines help streamline care management and care coordination.
Participation in value-based care models in a streamlined manner : The core competencies related to getting patient-centered medical home recognition are helpful in succeeding with certain other programs and value-based care initiatives such as accountable care organizations (ACOs) and comprehensive primary care plus (CPC+).
IT can be better integrated into the practice workflow :Providers get to maximize the use of IT in patient management; patient information capture and usage becomes more accurate and effective.
Formal decision-making framework gets better :With increased and efficient use of IT, the PCMH transformation helps unify and organize network practices.
Practice productivity increases : By qualifying for applicable incentives, better care team utilization, reduced waiting time, and seeing more number of patients become possible. This leads to increased practice productivity.
