Medical Home Failure

842 Words4 Pages
The PCMH is an excellent idea, but because the idea is so recent, there are several aspects about it that need to be addressed for the idea to become reality. Many people are excited with PCMHs, however with this excitement also comes unrealistic expectations. In order for the medical home to be successful, there are several obstacles that must be overcome. First, there are several primary care providers involved in the care of patients; they must all be willing to participate and cooperate with one another. Not only must they cooperate, but they must also be willing to work with the primary care physician to give him or her all of the necessary information with unlimited access, from multiple sites, about the patient’s acute or chronic illness…show more content…
Second, the general public may or may not receive the new concept with open arms. The name “medical home” does not necessarily reflect the function; people may incorrectly assume that a “medical home” is a nursing home (Fisher, 2008). Medicare has a pool of money that it allocates to physicians in general, whether they are primary care or specialists. If Medicare decides to reallocate some of this money towards primary care in order to incentivize physicians to work in primary care, money will have to be taken from specialists (assuming the pool of money remains constant) (Fisher, 2008). For this reason, there may be some opposition to the medical home from specialists. Third and finally, one of the chief issues with this model is that both primary care and specialty physicians continue to operate under the fee-for-service model. Because of this, both types of physicians depend on high volumes of patient visits in order to receive…show more content…
Each of these obstacles alludes to the fact that everyone has a role in the medical home: patients, physicians, the healthcare team, and insurance agencies (Fisher, 2008). The most realistic way to get all of these factors to align with a fully functioning medical home is to use accountability among providers. The first step in this process involves communicating all of these ideas and goals effectively to all of the appropriate people (Fisher, 2008). General communication and coordination between providers are some of the most difficult obstacles to overcome. Fortunately, the transition should not start from scratch, as most physicians have a large referral network that is mostly dependable. In order to increase funds for the medical home, electronic medical records and effective communication must be established within the practice network (Fisher, 2008). The next step is to address the performance evaluations given to patients. These evaluations should be altered to further include comprehensive evaluations of each patient’s global experience: organization of care coordination, routine assessment of improvement of patient’s quality of life due to the care provided, and total cost for the patient as a result of the care from the medical home network (Fisher, 2008). These changes in performance measures will allow for transparency to the public as well as increasing
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