December 2008

Making Medical Homes Work: Moving From Concept to Practice

The Center for Studying Health System Change (HSC) and Mathematica Policy Research (MPR) focused on researching how to move the Medical Home model from a concept, into practice. As the United States considers how to reform the health care system to increase quality and reduce expected Medicare and Medicaid cost increases over the next two decades, the Medical Home model has been considered as a possible base for the reform. The researchers explored four critical operational issues of the model that must be addressed for a successful implementation. Both HSC and MPR have direct experience with both public- and private-sector medical home initiatives, including leading the design of the Medicare medical home demonstration.