Report offers recommendations to states setting up medical homes

A new report from the National Academy for State Health Policy compiles information from Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Programs in 10 states to formulate a list of recommendations for other states considering implementing the medical home model (Source: “Medical home recommendations for states,” Modern Healthcare, June 28, 2009).

Information from Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, Oregon, Washington —in addition to North Carolina and Rhode Island which have well-developed medical home initiatives—led to five major strategies for other states to consider in developing their own plans:

• Forming partnerships with key players (including patients, providers and private sector payers) whose practices the state seeks to change.
• Defining medical homes to help establish provider expectations and implementing processes to recognize primary care practices that meet those expectations.
• Aligning reimbursement and purchasing to support and reward practices that meet performance expectations.
• Supporting practices to help advance patient-centered care.
• Measuring results to assess whether their efforts are succeeding in containing costs, improving quality and patient experience. Forming key partnerships.

The Commonwealth Fund-sponsored report, titled “Building Medical Homes in State Medicaid and CHIP Programs,” (pdf, 68 pages) is available on the Commonwealth Fund’s Web site.

Promoting the development of patient-centered medical homes is one of four ““Core collaborative transformational strategies” identified in the recently released Ohio Health Quality Improvement Plan (pdf, 45 pages).