Medical Homes May Not Be the Answer

A patient-centered medical home (PCMH) demonstration project did little to reduce costs and utilization or improve the quality of care, researchers found.

The 3-year study of 32 small- and medium-sized primary care practices -- believed to be the first multi-payer pilot in the nation to report results over 3 years -- found that the use of a PCMH model didn't reduce hospitalizations, emergency department use, ambulatory services, or costs, according to a report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Furthermore, the practices showed improvement in only one of 11 quality measures -- nephropathy screening in diabetes patients -- relative to 29 comparison sites, according to Mark Friedberg, MD, of the RAND Corporation in Boston, and colleagues.

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Source: Med Page Today