The CareFirst Patient-Centered Medical Home Program: Cost and Utilization Effects in Its First Three Years.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Enhanced primary care models have diffused slowly and shown uneven results. Because their structural features are costly and challenging for small practices to implement, they offer modest rewards for improved performance, and improvement takes time.

Objective

To test whether a patient-centered medical home (PCMH) model that significantly rewarded cost savings and accommodated small primary care practices was associated with lower spending, fewer hospital admissions, and fewer emergency room visits.

Design

We compared medical care expenditures and utilization among adults who participated in the PCMH program to adults who did not participate. We computed difference-in-difference estimates using two-part multivariate generalized linear models for expenditure

SUBMITTER: Cuellar A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5071295 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature