May 10th, 2010 by Richard Cooper, M.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Opinion, Research
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Group Health has published two papers recently, one in Health Affairs and the other in JAMA, both extolling the virtues of its Medical Home. These follow their brief report last fall in the NEJM and the lengthy description of their model in the American Journal of Managed Care. Their model has been promoted by the Commonwealth Fund, and it is cited in the currrent issue of Lancet.
The big news is that costs were a full 2% lower than conventional care, hardly a great success –- it wasn’t even statistically significant. But was even this small difference due to the Medical Home, or was it because the Medical Home patients were less likely to consume care? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at PHYSICIANS and HEALTH CARE REFORM Commentaries and Controversies*
March 10th, 2010 by StaceyButterfield in Better Health Network, Health Policy
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This week I’m attending the co-located National Medical Home Summit, National Retail Clinic Summit, and Population Health and Disease Management Colloquium here in Philly. (If only they had invited the transitions of care folks, they could have covered every hot-button issue in medical practice.)
The opening lecture, by Health Affairs editor Susan Dentzer, was meant to be an overview of health system change, but not surprisingly, the focus was on one obvious potential source of change–pending health care reform legislation. She saw the major accomplishment of last week’s summit as convincing the “three or four people who might have believed in a bipartisan solution” that it wasn’t going to happen. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*