Commonwealth study: Increased medical home activity does not add to costs

A new study from the Commonwealth Fund concludes that there is less than a $1-per-month difference in patient costs between patient-centered medical homes that have the highest intensity of medical home services, compared to PCMHs that have the lowest intensity of services (Source:”Incremental Cost Estimates for the Patient-Centered Medical Home,” Commonwealth Fund, Oct. 16, 2009).

“If one accepts the finding of a weak relationship between costs and PCMH levels, then becoming a PCMH may only require adjustments to how practice inputs are used, as opposed to incurring significant additional expenditures,” according to the study (pdf, 36 pages).

“Second, it may be that the PPC-PCMH recognition tool emphasizes certain dimensions of practice redesign (e.g., use of information technology) and, as a result, masks the relationship between costs and other elements of practice redesign that may be more important to improving patient-centeredness, such as expenditures of physician time.”