Medical Home Neighbor
What is a Patient-Centered Medical Home (PCMH)?
The PCMH is a patient-centered, comprehensive, team-based, coordinated, accessible model of primary care focused on quality and safety. The idea is that care is received in the right place, at the right time, and in a manner that best suits a patient’s needs. Accessibility means improving access to services, but also using technology (electronic or telephone access) to improve communication. This model provides for enhanced payments to the primary provider to coordinate and manage care outside of the patient visit. (Patient care that is not face-to-face with your doctor is not reimbursed. Patients with many health care needs require more coordination.
Having special health care needs means you or your child is a good fit for being cared for as part of a medical home. Special health care needs include needing more medical, mental health or education services than other children, having a limitation in functional abilities, having a need for special therapies, or having emotional, developmental or behavioral difficulties requiring treatment or counseling.
Are all medical providers part of a medical home?
No. In Minnesota, 322 or 43% of primary care clinics are certified Health Care Homes.
What is a Patient-Centered Medical Home Neighbor?
The ability of the PCMH to help patients is dependent on the cooperation of many specialists, subspecialists and other health care entities (like hospitals). Being a neighbor means working to optimize communication, coordination and integration with the PCMH in a bidirectional manner (back and forth) to provide the highest quality, effective and efficient care. Doing this allows your primary to take the best care of your child. This means making sure that patient care information is transmitted back and forth in a timely manner, that co-management situations are clearly laid out (for instance, your PCMH might handle routine care, and the neurologist handling the complex movement disorder, for instance).
What if my child is not cared for at a PCMH, does this change how Child Neurology Solutions will manage my child?
No. The principals of communication, cooperation and co-management are the same. Part of the medical home neighbor concept modeled by Dr. Gilles will be trying to make sure all of your child’s providers are on the same page with the core team of you and your primary provider. You will have access to all of your child’s information from Child Neurology Solutions through the patient care portal, including visit notes, laboratory and imaging data, and educational materials.