Arizona medical home test could provide insight for Ohio effort

With the strong urging of IBM, UnitedHealth has announced plans to begin a medical home pilot in Arizona (Source: “UnitedHealth and I.B.M. Test Health Care Plan,” New York Times, Feb. 7, 2009).

The test will entail seven physician practives who will been paid at a higher rate and given more authority in exchange for allowing the insurer to closely monitor patient outcomes. UnitedHealth also will begin a program of rewarding doctors for the overall quality of care their patients receive.

“This gives us the opportunity to create a model to allow family physicians to practice the way we used to practice in the past,” said Dr. Jim Dearing, a family practitioner in Phoenix who is among the physicians who have agreed to participate

The Arizona pilot comes with vocal support from IBM, one of the state’s largest employers. The experiment will initially involve about 7,000 patients of 26 doctors, although only a small fraction of those participating will be IBM employees. The experiment also will include Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries that UnitedHealth covers in the state.

The results of the experiment could be useful to participants in Ohio’s State Quality Improvement Initiative. At the group’s Ohio Health Quality Improvement Summit in November, a diverse gathering of more than 160 stakeholders voted on strategies for creating a high performing health system in Ohio and the strategy that received the most votes was the adoption of the chronic care model. A significant aspect of the chronic care model is the development of medical homes.