This week we will be discussing the patient-physician relationship. Not everyone has a primary care physician they can call "my PCP" although they have the means to do so through insurance. They wait until they have an acute episode that may result in a trip to the nearest Urgent Care or ED. Individuals who have no insurance are more likely to go the latter path as they believe they have no other option, and in some cases (not eligible for Medicaid or no accessible safety net such as a free clinic), they truly may not.

The ACA was created to increase the access to quality care while decreasing the cost in hopes of making people healthier. Some of the provisions under the ACA were designed to enhance the patient-physician relationship. One of these provisions includes the Patient Centered Medical Homes (PCMH) model. In this model, the physician works in collaboration with other health professionals as well as with the patient and family to coordinate the patient's care throughout the entire care episode, including accessing community services or the transition to additional entities. The patient is at the center of this model and becomes a partner in the coordination of his/her care. The patient is expected (as best possible) to assume an active role in helping make decisions about their health care. For those of you who had my MHA 710 course, you may recollect we had a few DQs that examined managed care and ACOs, to which the PCHM model is interrelated.

For this discussion question, share a patient-physician experience (yourself, family, or as an observation as an employee) in which you saw evidence of the PCMH model in the coordination of care. You may also share experiences where perhaps it was not used and how the coordination process could have been improved to have better outcomes. In light of the pandemic and the myriad of information that has passed by our eyes/ears over the last two years, you might want to also consider the element of trust. For some additional basic information on the concept of PCMH, go to:https://pcmh.ahrq.gov/page/defining-pcmh