Patient Centered Medical Home

Patient Centered Medical Home

Introduction

Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH)

This is a setup that assists in facilitation of partnerships between the patient, the physician involved and when applicable the patients family. Through registries, IT and exchange of health information care can be ensured to a patient when and wherever they require it in a culture and linguistic appropriate way. The main principals are the ongoing relationship the patient has with their physician from contact to continuous complete care. The physician leads the individuals to take collective responsibility for the patients care. Furthermore, the physician is required to provide and fulfill all healthcare needs, professionals when needed and chronic, preventive and then eventually care for the patient when their life is about to end (Landon, Gill, JM., Antonelli, & Rich, 2010).

Health Management Organization

This type of management is a prepaid health service where customers pay a fee whether every month or annually for all their health care needs. During the 1970's this concept was introduced by Dr. Paul Ellwood. Most HMO's include group practice, which involves physicians. In order to avoid the cost of hospitalization as costs for patients are fixed from before, preventive medicine is given a lot of importance. To customers only seeing doctors and professionals who are in association with the organization is seen as limitation for making a choice as most have family doctors they would in some instances prefer. At a fixed fee, professional physicians are arranged in a common practice with one insured agency. This was originally seen as a method to control the costs of health care and to meet the health care service rising demand however it soon became controversial after refusal to pay for treatment and tests if they were not in accordance with their own doctor's word (Kao, Green, Zaslavsky & Koplan, 1998).

Difference between PCMH and HMO

Patient centered medical homes are seen as an improvement over the primary care service system instead of it being a basic change. An individual working in a PCMH with primary care physicians and support clinic staff with a sense of medical partnership is orchestrating patient medical care by giving care directly or through a referral program for those individuals who need special care. HMO is seen to deliver effective care, compared to that of the traditional model of PCMH, as it is believed that the former would only keep physicians instead of a regulator who ...