Aetna and Partners in Care Test New Approach to Health Care Services
Aetna
News Release
November 13, 2008
New Model Creates a “Medical Home” for Patients that is Based on a Strong Primary Care Relationship and Close Coordination with Other Care Providers
Aetna (NYSE: AET) and Partners In Care, Corp. (PIC) today announced a pilot program to test an innovative new health care model that will make the health care system an easier place for patients. Called a “Patient-Centered Medical Home” the model emphasizes the role of the primary care physician (PCP) in managing and coordinating patient care across a range of care providers, including specialists and hospitals.
The Patient-Centered Medical Home concept of care has been under development since the mid-90s and is based on a patient having an ongoing relationship with a personal physician trained to provide first contact and continuous, comprehensive care. This personal physician leads a team of care providers at the practice level who collectively take responsibility for the ongoing care of patients, looking beyond the walls of their own office, and communicating with the patient’s other providers to assure the treatment plans are followed. The concept is designed to nurture and strengthen the relationship between the patient and physician.
“PIC sees its role as a physician organization as finding ways to support the practicing physicians in their effort to improve the overall quality of care provided to their patients, and by rewarding physicians for achieving national certification standards. This joint effort will have a significant impact,” said Kevin O’Brien, President & CEO, Partners In Care.
http://www.aetna.com/news/newsReleases/2008/1113_PICCorp.html
And…
Partners in Care, Corp.
Constituted as a for-profit, closely held, New Jersey corporation, the equity is held by seventy individual shareholders belonging to the United Medical Group (UMG).
Using the techniques developed under full-risk contract management, PIC has bundled patient health advocacy, managed care administration, and medical informatics into a series of customizable product and service lines. Our customer base includes individual physician practices, large physician organizations, mid-sized employers, health plans, and benefit consultants / brokers.
http://www.piccorp.com/aboutus.htm
Comment:
By Don McCanne, MD
Our very expensive but highly dysfunctional system of financing health care has resulted in serious deficiencies and neglect of the infrastructure of our health care delivery system. Foremost amongst these problems is the rapid deterioration of the primary care infrastructure.
It is not as if we have remained unaware of this very serious deficiency. In fact, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Osteopathic Association have supported the medical home concept as a model for reinforcing primary care. The label is not important. What is important is the concept that everyone should have available a primary care entry point that improves access to coordinated, comprehensive health care services. This is not about gatekeepers. It’s about everyone receiving the health care that they need.
Our dysfunctional, fragmented, multi-payer and no payer system of financing health care has been incapable of realigning incentives and appropriately allocating resources to build and maintain the primary care structure that we need. We spend more money and we get less.
Don’t worry. Aetna, in partnership with Partners in Care, has usurped the “medical home” label to… provide us with a comprehensive primary care system? Well… No. On top of our flawed systems of financing and delivering care, they are adding “customizable product and service lines.” With our system already weighted down with an excess of egregiously wasteful administrative services, they are using the medical home label to sell us even more egregiously wasteful administrative services!