Health Centers To Promote PCMHs; Analysis Raises PCMH Questions

HHS last week announced more than $8.6 million in funding for 246 health centers across the country. The awards will help to improve quality of care and patients’ and providers’ experience of care through the Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH) health care delivery model.　 These awards will provide assistance to health centers to make the changes necessary to achieve, expand and optimize PCMH recognition. Click here to see state-by-state which facilities will be funded.

Federal PCMH Initiative Falling Short: Analysis
Federal efforts to reform primary care practices through enhanced primary care medical homes have not fared well, according to a new analysis of CMS' Multi-Payer Advanced Primary Care Practice Demo released last week. "Overall, Year Two of the MAPCP Demonstration found state initiatives still attempting to hit their stride. States were still implementing new components and encountering and finding solutions to new challenges," according to the report. "Our quantitative analysis supported this contention by finding very few consistent, favorable changes associated with the MAPCP Demonstration across the eight states. At the end of Year Two, only three of the eight initiatives were associated with slower rates of growth of total Medicare expenditures." Click here for the complete analysis.