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Jamie Barrand | Oct 23, 2015

Study pinpoints costs of a Patient-Centered Medical Home

A study published in the September-October edition of the Annals of Family Medicine examines the costs of sustaining a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH).

Two of the study's authors, Michael Magill, M.D., and David Ehrenberger, M.D., spoke earlier this month at the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) Family Medicine Experience and put the findings in context.

The study found that the unique costs associated with sustaining a patient-centered medical home are more than $100,000 per full-time clinician per year.

"It has 95 percent of the content of our presentation, but (the study) misses the whole point of the presentation, quite frankly, because it talks about facts but doesn't put it in context of the landscape of primary care in the United States, which is the most important takeaway," Ehrenberger, chief medical officer of Avista Adventist Hospital in Louisville, Colorado, said.  

"We live in times of paradox," Ehrenbeger continued. "There are 10 years of data that support the effectiveness of the medical home. Clearly, in many ways, the medical home epitomizes the right thing to do in primary care.

Conversely, Ehrenberger noted the "loss of favor of the medical home construct amongst" some family physicians.

The study was funded by a grant from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

"The reason for this study is to identify our practice costs so that we can then turn to payers and identify the value for which they are paying,"  Magill, professor and chair of the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine at the University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, and executive medical director of the University of Utah Health Plans, Murray, said.

The largest costs associated with PCMHs was planning and managing care.

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